Not What You Think
by MissSadieKane
Summary: An alternative universe where Regulus Black has similar views to Sirius but hides them from his family. Regulus gets on the wrong side of the Lestrange brothers. Sirius gets sorted into Gryffindor and makes new friends. Chapter 10: The aftermath of Bellatrix's wedding.
1. Regulus Meets a Mudblood

_Disclaimer: This story is written for entertainment purposes only. The only characters I own so far are Steph and Ryan._

 _Authors Note: This is a rewrite of Not What You Think. I've changed some parts, mainly because I don't think I have portrayed Mrs Black very well, I think Bellatrix was unrealistic, and I wanted to give a bit more insight into the some of the background characters._

 _Almost all we know about Regulus Black from the Harry Potter books comes from Sirius and Kreacher. From what Sirius says, it is clear that his relationship with his brother was not a good one, so is what is said actually the truth? How well did he know his brother and did Regulus keep secrets from him? What if Regulus actually had the same views as Sirius? This tells the story of life in the Black family from Regulus's point of view from ages nine to twelve. First in series (next story is ages 13-16)._

 _This story is AU because of Regulus's views, and because Narcissa and Andromeda are younger than their cannon ages. I wanted them to attend Hogwarts with Sirius and Regulus to make the story more interesting. This first chapter is set around the spring before Sirius goes to Hogwarts. Bella is 18 nearly 19, Andromeda is 15, Sirius is 11, Narcissa is 10 and Regulus is 9. All nick names in this chapter are those used by Regulus, not by Sirius. The names change according to who is speaking._

 **Chapter One: Regulus Meets A Mudblood**

Cissy's new shoes collided with my shin. I knew it had been her because she was trying to suppress a giggle, and Sirius couldn't reach that far. I glanced under the table to take a look, but I couldn't tell whether she'd made a mark or not because of my trouser leg. It actually hurt a lot, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want Bella to call me a baby again.

We were supposed to be sitting quietly at the dinner table, as Mother had said it was a special occasion. Mother, Father, Sirius and I had all been invited for dinner at our cousins' house to celebrate Bella's recent engagement to Rodolphus Lestrange. Bellatrix wasn't exactly happy about everyone getting together just to talk about the marriage and I wasn't happy about the marriage at all.

"He's slow, ugly and has no heart whatsoever, but if he's pureblood and it stops my Mother complaining about me not finding a husband then he'll do," Bella had said to me once in private. That had been in her sixth year, when they'd only just started 'dating'. Bella had said she'd only said yes to him to make her parents stop pestering her, but by the end of the year they were happily in love (well that's what Bella had said anyway) I doubted it was true - I'd seen the looks of disgust she usually gave him. I, on the other hand, had never liked Lestrange and never would.

Right now, Sirius, Narcissa and I were getting bored waiting for my Aunt's house elf to return with dessert. Since we weren't even of Hogwarts age yet, none of us were allowed to talk unless we were asked a question. This meant that there was nothing to do except listen to the grownups conversation.

"The Lestranges are very high up in the Ministry, aren't they?" my Father commented. This wasn't really a question since Father worked in the same department as Rodolphus's father, and the grownups had been discussing how 'wonderful' the Lestranges were since half way through our starter.

"Yes, and I've heard Rodolphus is following in his Father's footsteps," my Aunt replied. "He's only 19 and he's already landed himself an office job in the Department of Magical Defence."

Aunt Druella then went on another rant about how 'amazingly' talented he was. I looked across the table at Bella, who looked like she was ready to murder her mother. Meanwhile, Andromeda looked extremely uncomfortable and was probably desperately hoping that my Aunt wouldn't mention Rabastan again. Rabastan was Rodolphus's sadistic younger brother, and my Aunt thought it would be 'an absolutely wonderful idea' to set him up with her other daughter.

As if on cue, an elderly House Elf tottered into the room carrying a tray laden with bowls of strawberry meringue. A second, younger Houser Elf stood behind with another tray: this one with an ornate glass pitcher of white, sparkling wine and five wine glasses. Aunt Druella paused in her conversation to acknowledge them before continuing to talk whilst the House Elves laid the table. I waited until everyone had been served before tucking in.

Cissy was the first to finish and quietly raised her hand.

"Yes, Narcissa," said her Father.

"Please may I leave the table, Father?"

"Yes of course dear. Run along and play with your cousins," he said kindly. "And you too, Andromeda."

The four of us got down from the table and left the grownups in the dining room to discuss weddings and politics, and to eat their puddings at snail's pace. Cissy ran straight up towards the Nursery, which was full of porcelain dolls, dolls' houses, and pink, frilly things. Sirius followed her upstairs, which left me alone with Andromeda.

Andromeda was fifteen and a fourth year at Hogwarts. However, she was here for the Easter Holidays. She was my favourite cousin to talk to, especially since she had started Hogwarts and new lots of spells. She also liked to read, which was one of my favourite hobbies – other than drawing. Sometimes we could sit next to each other for hours just reading. Cissy was friendly, but a bit too talkative and far too girly.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" she asked me. "The others won't be done talking for ages yet so we've got plenty of time."

"Yeah, OK."

Andromeda popped her head back around the door to the dining room. "Father, is it alright if I go out for a while," I heard her ask.

"Yes of course dear, but will you take the boys with you so that we may enjoy some peace and quiet?"

"Yes Father."

…..

Five minutes later, we were out of the house and heading down the main road. Earlier we had gone upstairs to look for Sirius, but had found only Cissy, who had been sitting quietly brushing the hair of one of her favourite dolls. She had said that Sirius had gone off to explore the attic and that he wouldn't want to come anyway.

"So where are we actually going?" I asked my cousin. I had assumed we would be going to the park, but we were heading in the complete opposite direction. If Andromeda didn't turn off soon we'd be in the muggle district. I didn't mind muggles: Sirius had taken me to a different park to the usual one once and there had been some muggles there. They had been fun to play with until one of the muggle boys had asked me what my favourite 'TV program' was. I hadn't known what they'd meant (and I still didn't), and the boy had laughed at me.

"Well I'm supposed to be meeting my boyfriend and his cousins in a few minutes. Are you alright to come too?"

"I think so," I replied. "Do you not want me to come?" I asked. Meeting with her boyfriend sounded like it ought to be private.

"No, I wanted you and Sirius to meet him. He's called Ted and he said he has a little cousin your age that he'd like you to meet. I planned the meeting to coincide with you visiting us," said Andromeda.

"But what if Uncle Cygnus had said you weren't allowed out?" I asked.

"Father almost always trusts me enough to let me do what I want. And if he hadn't let me, Ted would understand."

"What's he like? Is he scary like Rodolphus is?" I asked. Once when I was four, he had locked me in a cupboard with a Boggart, which had turned into an Inferus. I still had nightmares about it sometimes.

"Who, Ted?" she asked.

"Yeah," I confirmed.

"No, he's really nice. He's not scary at all. I think you'll like him actually."

"Cool."

"Oh, and another thing. Erm, Ted's not exactly a pureblood," added Andromeda.

"You're dating a Half-blood? But Auntie and Uncle and Bella will hate him! And Mother won't even let half-breeds through the door, even if they're from the Ministry of Magic," I said.

"Um… well… Ted's not a Half-blood either. He's Muggleborn."

"What? But Bella said that Mudbloods were evil, scary mud people. She said that was why they were called Mudbloods, because they had had mud instead of blood. Why are you dating a that?"

"Reggie, first of all, don't call them Mudbloods. It's rude. And secondly, don't believe everything my sister tells you because she makes most of it up," Andromeda said in an exasperated tone.

"So they don't live in swamps then?"

"No! They're no different to us. They're just wizards with muggle parents so they don't know as much about wizarding culture that's all."

We rounded the corner and saw two boys about Andromeda's age wearing muggle clothing, and a smaller girl beside them. Andromeda ran and hugged one of them, who had brown hair and blue eyes.

"Hello, sorry I've only just escaped from dinner. By the way this is my cousin, Reggie."

"Hi, I'm Ted Tonks," said the brown haired boy, holding out his hand. I shook it, and noticed that it was clean and soft like mine, with not a trace of mud on it. "These are my cousins, Ryan and Stephannie," he continued, pointing at the other two.

I stuck out me hand for them to shake, which they did. Both of them had very dark brown hair, but while Ryan's was cut short in the same style as Ted's, Stephannie had hers in two long plaits. They both had the same blue eyes and the same shaped nose as Ted did.

"Hi, I'm Regulus," I said, even though Andromeda had already introduced me using the nickname Reggie: usually only family or very close friends called me that.

"I'm Ryan," said Ryan.

"Hi, I'm Stephannie, but you can call me Steph if you like," said the girl. "Do you want me to call you Reggie or Regulus?"

"Er, Reggie," I said, since she'd already said I could shorten her name.

"Come on, follow me. We'll go to my place 'cos it's nearer," Ryan said.

Andromeda and I walked followed the two boys through the muggle streets. As we got further from home, the streets became narrower, and the houses became shorter and thinner. There were also more muggle children playing in the streets. They didn't really look any different to wizards and, if I hadn't known that this was a muggle neighbourhood, I would have thought that they were wizarding children like I was. When I mentioned this Andromeda just looked exasperated and told me that the only difference between muggles and wizards was that muggles were unable to do magic. After that I didn't say anything.

When we reached Ryan's house, he led us up the garden path before letting himself and the rest of us in. I took off my shoes and left them by the door like everyone else had and then stared around at the hallway in amazement. The walls were painted a light blue colour, like the sky, and the floor was covered by a soft, darker blue carpet. That wasn't particularly remarkable. What were odd were the pictures all over the walls. The first of which was a picture of two people, whom I presumed were Ryan and Stephannie's parents, wearing wedding outfits. Another showed the same man, this time lot younger, wearing rather odd-looking, black robes, and a peculiar, square-shaped hat (I guessed this was some kind of muggle fashion). However, instead of waving at me they just stood there smiling – silent and rigid like statues.

"Why are they so still?" I asked.

Andromeda sighed and shook her head, willing me to shut up. Ryan just looked confused.

"Muggle photographs don't move like wizarding ones do," Ted answered eventually.

"What? Not at all? But don't the people in the picture get bored being stuck in the same position?"

"No, our photos just capture the exact moment when the picture is taken. When I first went to Hogwarts I was really confused that the pictures in the photographs on the chocolate frog cards moved. And I nearly jumped out of my skin when one of the portraits started talking." I found that hard to believe. At home all the portraits talked to me all the time. Maybe muggle portraits were as still as muggle photographs were.

I followed them upstairs. When we reached the first floor landing they stopped and Ryan opened the door to a room with bright red wall paper. I was shocked at how many toys there were. There was a dolls' house (a lot less fancy than Cissy's but still obviously recognisable as one); what appeared to be a very loopy and dangerous miniature road with pretend muggle cars on it (some of which were upside-down); a huge marble run taking up a quarter of the room, and lots of tiny multi-coloured bricks all over the floor. Mother would have gone berserk at me if I'd made a mess like that.

"Sorry about the mess. I was playing with the Lego earlier and I didn't know anyone was coming over." I presumed that "Lego" meant the bricks, for they looked like the thing that had most recently been played with. I wasn't sure what to say, so I didn't say anything. Steph asked me if I wanted to play and I said yes. We started building a castle.

Steph hadn't actually got enough 'Lego' or starting base to build a castle like Hogwarts, so we built a simple castle with four turrets in a square shape.

"Have you ever been to a castle?" Steph asked.

"No, but my brother Sirius is going to one to learn magic in September. I wish I could go too," I said. It wasn't the fact that Sirius would be learning magic when I wasn't that bothered me. It was the thought of being left alone in the lonely big house while Sirius got to make loads of new friends and play Quidditch that had me longing to go with him.

"Learn magic eh? My Mum told me magic wasn't real but I didn't believe her!" said Steph. Evidently Ted had kept his mouth shut about magic to the rest of his family. I hoped I wouldn't get in trouble for mentioning it.

"Well I think wizards try to keep it secret. I don't really know why," I said.

"Why you telling me then?" she said laughing.

"My cousin Bella says I shouldn't be talking about magic to muggles – non magical people – but my other cousin, Andy, says I shouldn't listen to what Bella says, so I'm doing the opposite of what Bella says from now on," I said. The idea was pretty funny, but then I realised that what Bella says might be based on what Mother says, in which case it would be very bad idea indeed.

"So, what else do you know about the castle then? Is it like this one?" I looked at the red, yellow, blue and green striped, four-walled, miniature castle. It looked nothing like the pictures of Hogwarts that Andy and Bella had shown me.

"No, it's bigger," I said.

"Obviously."

"Well, I've never been to it, but I've read all about it in 'Hogwarts: A History'. That's a big book about the school. The great hall has the ceiling charmed to look like the sky and it's absolutely immense," I said. Steph looked impressed. "If you like, I'll lend you it – the book I mean, not the hall," I added, as I looked at the expression on Steph's face. "If Andromeda brings me again, I'll bring it with me and you can read it."

"Thank you. So will you miss your brother when he goes there?"

"Yeah. We don't get on all the time, but when he plays with me it's fun," I said. I'd only just met her, so I didn't tell her how Sirius always blames me whenever anything goes wrong, how even if Sirius does get the blame, I still get punished after, or that Sirius thinks I am "weak, stupid, and a baby". I'm none of those things – well at least I don't _think_ I am.

Just then, a woman who looked a lot like Steph and her brother entered the room.

"Stephannie, I'm just putting tea on. Can you _please_ tidy up that _awful_ mess, because I need to Hoover in here," she said. "Oh, hello, who's this?

"Reggie," I said.

"Oh. Are you related to Andromeda by any chance?" she asked. People usually said that Andromeda and I looked alike. I didn't really think we did: she had brown hair, whilst I had black hair. Our eyes were also different colours. However everyone would say that our faces were very similar.

"Yeah, she's my cousin," I replied.

Steph's mum didn't seem to have any problem with having to cook for uninvited guests, which I found odd. Steph and I chucked all the unused Lego into a box and then shoved it all under the bed. After we had done this, a strange loud noise started up. I jumped and clutched Stephannie in fright, but I managed to stop myself from screaming as the noise grew louder.

"Don't worry, it's just the Hoover," she told me, laughing.

"The what?" I asked. I'd never heard of a hoover before.

"Hoover. It's for cleaning," she said, pointing over at her mother. Her mother appeared to be standing next to a strange red monster with a very long, black nose, to which she had attached a pole with a brush on the end of it. I presumed the loud noise was because the creature did not want the pole to be attached to its nose.

"Don't you have a house elf to do that?" I asked, staring confusedly at Steph's mother's rather odd cleaning methods. Surely it would have been a lot simpler to use a broom or a mop, or whatever it was that Kreacher normally used to clean the floors with.

"House elf? I thought they were pretend. I've got a book all about them though."

"Oops. I thought everyone had house-elves," I said.

We looked at Steph's picture book with the house-elves in it. There were also fairies, leprechauns, pixies and mermaids in it too, and Steph said I could borrow it if I wanted. I said yes. It would be interesting to compare what wizards and muggles thought about magical creatures.

Soon it was time for tea. Steph's mum had made sausages, beans and some yellow, smiley-face shaped things. Ryan told me they were made of potato, like chips. I ate the sausage and beans, which were really nice, but then I was left with smiling faces, which I really didn't really want to cut into. Steph plonked hers in a blob of red sauce, so that redness came through the eyes and mouth. I imagined it was Cissy's face with blood coming out, and it made me feel sick. I didn't eat any more.

After eating, Andromeda took me home to her house again. Uncle Cygnus answered the door and led us into the drawing room where Aunt Druella, Bella, Cissy and my father were sitting drinking tea. Cissy also had a plate full of jam-laden scones, which nobody seemed bothered about. No one said where Mother was, but they didn't need to – I could hear her yelling at Sirius for messing with things in the attic that he shouldn't have been touching. The outcome was that Sirius was to go to bed with no supper and that next time we came he wouldn't be able to go off on his own.

Cissy, who had her lips covered in cream and jam, passed me the plate and I sat down next to her. I took one of the scones and passed the plate on to Andromeda.

"Narcissa, will you please eat a little more delicately. Especially since we have company," my Aunt said.

"Yes Mother."

"And for goodness sake, sit up straight dear!" she barked.

"Yes Mother."

Just then, my own Mother entered, dragging an unhappy-looking Sirius by the scruff of the neck.

 _AN: So, that's the end of the chapter. I know it's really similar to how it was before, but there were bits of my story that made no sense and that I really didn't like when looking back. I've tried to change them around. Any guesses as to what Sirius was messing with? Tell me what you think so far. How is my characterisation?_


	2. Nightmares and Hospitals

_Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter books and this story is just written for the fun of it. Hope you enjoy it._

 **Chapter Two: Nightmares and Hospitals**

 _The shops overhanging the already badly-lit, narrow street made it difficult to see far ahead, but I carried on following Bellatrix. It was raining, and both my shoes and the bottoms of my trouser legs were already soaked from the puddles that had settled in the cobbled street. I didn't know why I was following Bellatrix, only that she was moving fast and I had to keep up._

 _Bellatrix stopped in front one of the shops. It was selling a selection of muggle things that I'd seen before such as a vacuum cleaner and marbles and Lego. There were also bicycles and smaller versions of muggle cars and buses – I guessed they were toy cars._

 _I followed Bellatrix into the shop, where she approached the counter. I didn't know why the shop was open (it was night time) and what Bellatrix wanted to buy – she hadn't picked anything up. I didn't even know if she knew I was watching._

 _Instead of buying something, Bellatrix went behind it and grabbed the man standing there by the shoulders. She held her wand to his throat and whispered a spell. The man's body began to shake and he started to scream._

" _Stop! What are you doing, Bella?" I shouted. I didn't understand what my cousin was doing to the muggle or why._

" _Regulus? Go back home," said Bellatrix, still cursing the man._

" _No, only if you come home too. I want you to stop," I told her._

" _If you don't come home, I will have to kill this muggle in front of you," said Bella. Then she giggled. "Do you want to watch, Reggie?"_

" _No! Just stop it, Bella!" I said._

" _Alright then, Avada kedavra!" Bright green light sped from my cousins wand to the man's chest, where blood started to spurt out, as if the light had been a dagger. I had never seen the killing curse before and I knew I never wanted to see this again._

 _I felt numb, as I followed Bellatrix out of the shop and into another. This one didn't seem to sell anything recognisable. I watched as Bellatrix killed a second shop-keeper, blood spilling everywhere. I was too scared to say anything at all until she had finished and turned to face me, a huge cat-like grin on her face._

" _Why are you doing this?" I asked in a small voice._

" _Because they are muggles," Bellatrix answered. "And all muggles deserve to die."_

" _But I met some muggles today and they were nice," I told her._

" _Yes you did. And they deserve to die too," said Bellatrix._

I woke up crying. I'd had a nightmare, and I couldn't get the pictures of people covered in blood and Bella saying all 'mudbloods' should die, out of my head. I was in complete shock that I had visualised my cousin doing something so completely awful: Bella could be mean, I knew that – especially around the Rosier brothers or Macnair when they picked on Sirius and I, but I had never imagined she would kill anybody.

I untangled the bedclothes from around me, and hugged my toy dog to my chest. Sirius had given me the small, black dog for my second Birthday, and I'd named it Sirius II because it reminded me of him. I'd always thought Sirius had a dog-like personality. I was also hungry, as it was over ten hours since I had had tea at Steph's house.

I knew Mother and Father couldn't care less that I was hungry and unable to sleep, so I decided the best person to ask was Sirius. Sirius was always there for me when Mother and father weren't. I picked up Sirius II and crept silently across the room to the doorway. I quickly checked there was no one coming, before quickly dashing down the hallway to Sirius's room.

It was a few hours past midnight, so Sirius was asleep. I shook him.

"Sirius," I whispered. "Wake up!" Sirius rolled over, and pulled the duvet over his head. I hastily pulled it back down, continuing the shaking until he woke up properly.

"What!" he said, half whispering, half shouting. I was beginning to wish I hadn't bothered waking him and just asked Kreacher for some food.

"I had a nightmare Siri," I whimpered. At first he looked as if he was going to yell at me for waking him up over something so trivial, like he had the last time I'd had a fright, but then he moved over slightly and made a small space for me to sit. I climbed onto the bed next to him.

"Tell me what happened," he said. I didn't really want to think about the nightmare, but I told Sirius anyway. I leaned into his chest, and he put his arms around me. I held onto Sirius and Sirius II tightly.

"Bella was there," I sobbed, "and she was killing muggles and muggleborns and she was laughing at them. She was talking to them and doing this horrid curse that make them shake and twitch and scream and-"

"Shh, Reggie. Calm down," whispered Sirius, hugging me tightly. "She isn't doing it now, it was just a nightmare."

"But she killed them all and there was blood everywhere and she was doing that awful giggly laugh she always does when she gets you into trouble over something you didn't even do," I cried. By now I was breathing very fast and sobbing enough to make Sirius's pyjamas all wet.

"Reggie it's okay: it's not real," said Sirius. Then when I continued blubbing like a baby, he added, "please don't cry," and rocked me gently until I ceased sobbing uncontrollably.

"Please tell me it's not ever going to happen. That Bella can't ever be a killer – that she just can't be!" I said once I'd calmed down a little.

"Well, I'm not going to lie. Bellatrix isn't exactly the nicest of people, and she hates muggles," said Sirius.

"Yes, but she's our Bella. Bella that tells me stories about hopping pots and sings me to sleep when I'm upset. She can't be a killer!" I wailed. Sirius shushed me, telling me that if I didn't shut up, Mother would hear us. "She can be _mean_ , but not _that_ mean!" I whispered. We sat in silence, Sirius hugging me and trying to get me to stop crying.

"I don't think your nightmare's going to come true anyway," said Sirius after a while.

"Why not?" I asked. I hoped he was going to say that Bella couldn't ever be that mean, and that this was just a silly nightmare. Instead he said something that didn't make me feel better at all.

"Well because when witches and wizards want to kill people like muggles, they use the unforgivable curses, like Avada Kedavra. That spell kills them leaving no evidence. They don't leave any marks on the bodies at all. Bellatrix wouldn't be stupid enough to leave all that blood."

I burst into tears again. Sirius was doing nothing to make me less scared that Bellatrix would one day be like that nightmare.

"Shush Reg," he said, letting go of me. "Stop being such a cry-baby. Do you _want_ Mother or Father to come in and start shouting at us?"

I shook my head and hugged my toy dog tighter. Sirius was right: I was making far too much noise, and Mother would be furious if she found me up in the middle of the night.

"Sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to snap. You hungry?"

I nodded. I'd almost forgotten I was hungry until he'd said that. I'd also forgotten until that moment that Sirius hadn't been allowed to have any scones or any supper last night. "How are we going to get food Siri?"

"Follow me." Sirius got up, and went to the door. He tiptoed down the hallway, while I followed behind, trying to be as quiet as _he_ was. "Shh!" he hissed. "What do you not get about staying quiet?"

"Sorry Siri," I mumbled quietly and stopped where I was. Sirius continued walking down the hallway and down the staircase. I knew he was heading to the kitchens – that's where Kreacher would be. Kreacher was the best House Elf in the world. He would be able to make us something nice to eat, and then I could order him not to tell Mother and she wouldn't know any different. I cautiously began following again, but slipped on the newly polished floor at the top of the staircase.

I was too frightened to scream. I tumbled headfirst, scraping my tummy and elbows on each and every step until I crashed into an ornate vase on the second floor landing. I looked down. My right arm was bent at a peculiar angle, and there were pieces of glass stuck in it. When I tried to move it, sharp pain shot upwards. I cried out to Sirius, but no sound came out. Sirius glanced up at me, and then at the stop of the staircase as if to say: "Well done Reg! Surely Mother's going to kill us now." The look quickly faded though and Sirius rushed towards me.

"Reg, are you alright!" shouted Sirius, momentarily forgetting to be quiet. He knelt down beside me and stared at my arm, not wanting to touch it. There was blood seeping out from around the cuts made by the pieces of glass, now, and I was pretty sure I could see the bone. I quickly looked away from it since the sight of blood was making me feel queasy.

"What on earth are you two doing up? Get to bed at once!" shouted Father. Given all that had happened, I hadn't noticed him standing at the top of the stairs in his dressing gown. Mother was just behind him with her hair all loose and wavy instead of in its usual complicated knot. She looked as if she was going to fall asleep on her feet.

"F-father, Reg was sleep walking and he… he's really hurt," lied Sirius, pointing at me on the floor. I would have said something, but the pain was such that I could hardly talk.

"Sirius, go to bed. I'll deal with your brother," said Father. When Sirius didn't move, Father shouted at him and he grudgingly walked back up the stairs. Father walked down towards me with Mother following close behind. "Oh, Regulus, why are you so clumsy?" he sighed as he knelt down beside me.

"I didn't mean to," I sobbed, though it was true what Father had said about me being very clumsy. Only last week, I had been playing a game with Sirius and had knocked the portrait of Phineas Nigellus off the wall with my elbow. The frame of the painting had bent and the glass had fallen off it. Father had been out at work, but Mother had been furious with me and sent me to bed.

"Regulus, it's okay. Nobody is cross with you," said Father. "Now let's have a look at you."

I moved a little so that Father could see my arm. Mother gasped at the sight of it, and Father looked worried. "Can you lift it?" Father asked. I tried, but my arm hurt too much and felt like it was glued to the floor. I tried to wiggle me fingers and a wave of pain shot up my arm.

"It hurts," I whimpered. "Father, _please_ make it stop."

"I'm not sure I can: I don't want to make it worse," he told me. He then stepped back and began hurriedly whispering something to Mother. Mother whispered something back and then crouched down next to me.

"Regulus, can you stand?" she asked. I wasn't sure if I could and I didn't want to try, so I shook my head. Mother nodded and put her arms around me to try and pick me up. She got me nearly to my feet and then Father lifted my gently into the air as easily as if I was as light as a toddler.

"Okay, Regulus. I don't know how to heal you so I'm going to take you to St. Mungo's," said Father. "Do you want to floo or apparate?"

"Apparate." I'd never apparated before but it couldn't be much worse than floo powder. We had to use the floo network every time we went to Diagon Alley or any other place that we couldn't walk to, and every single time I managed to land in a heap on the floor, coughing, and covered in soot. It was most undignified.

"Alright, if you're sure." I nodded in the affirmative, and Father apparated. It was awful! I felt as if I was being squeezed and pulled in all directions, and it made my arm feel even worse than it already did. However, it was over quite quickly and before I knew it we had landed in a large, white entrance hall. I had enough time to register that we had arrived before I threw up all over Father.

Father almost dropped me, and a lady ran towards us from behind a desk in the corner.

"Oh goodness! Is he OK? Magical Bugs and Diseases is on the second floor. Would you like a map?" she said in a high-pitched squeak.

"No, I don't think we need that - it's just his first time apparating. We're actually here because of his arm," Father explained. He then cast a quick 'Scurgify' to get rid of all the mess.

The lady looked down at my blood-covered arm, which was dangling from my shoulder like a piece of wet string. "Oh, you'll need to go that way then," she said, pointing to the door on her right. "Just follow the corridor round until you get to another welcome desk. They'll show you where to go."

We did as she said and sure enough we came across another desk. A mediwitch directed us to a waiting room. This room was full of other people with much more horrific injuries than me (one had a somehow managed to get their wand stuck in their eye), and so I had to wait for ages and ages to get seen to. When I did eventually get seen to it was absolutely horrible…

After a healer called my name, I was taken into another room and Father laid me down on a bed. I was then given an everlasting lollipop and told to suck it while the healer dealt with my arm. "Here, Regulus, have this," the Healer had said. She had then gone on to add, "This might hurt a little."

It didn't hurt "a little". The Healer had to pull the glass out one piece at a time so that she could heal each one separately: "Well, if I pull them out all at once, you'll bleed to death," she had said. Blood went everywhere anyway, and by the end of the ordeal I was in tears again. After the cuts were healed, the Healer-lady bandaged up the broken arm, and gave me a couple of potions to take home to make it heal.

…..

 _A/N: About Healing. I know Madame Pomfrey can mend cuts in a second and mend broken bones, but as with muggle cuts, glass has to be pulled out first by a professional, and I don't think Regulus's parents would have felt comfortable doing that. Also, this is the early 70s so healing is not the same as in the HP books – complex fractures take longer to heal than more simple broken bones. The potions I mentioned are a pain potion and a potion to heal broken bones in a couple of days._

 _In the next few chapters there is talk of Voldemort for the first time, and Regulus does a book swap. There will also be some cute pets._

 _I hope you liked this chapter. If you read the previous version it should be obvious what's different. (This chapter corresponds to chapters 3 and 4.) I'd like to know what you think. Also, I found it really hard writing this from Regulus's point of view._

 _If you didn't read it before, I'd still like to know what you thought. Do you like Regulus's relationship with Sirius? What about his concerns about Bella? Will the 'nightmare' come true?_


	3. Letters and Diagon Alley

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series and that includes the Blacks, Kreacher, Diagon Alley and Evan Rosier. This has just been re-uploaded after I spotted another spelling error._

 **Chapter Three: Letters and Diagon Alley**

"It's time to wake up, Master Regulus." I woke up to see the wide eyes of my favourite House Elf, Kreacher, who had his wiry fingers resting on my uninjured shoulder. I tried to snuggle back under the covers, but Kreacher wouldn't have it. He peeled back the sheet, letting the cold air waft over me.

I tried to get up and grimaced as stabbing pains went through my arm, which was still in a bandage from yesterday. "Master Regulus needs to drink his potion," said Kreacher. "Here, Kreacher will help Master Regulus." Kreacher almost always talked in third person and he always called me "Master Regulus", even though I had been telling him it was ok to call me Reggie for as long as I could remember. (I could have ordered him to call me Reggie, but that wouldn't have been fair.)

Kreacher helped me to sit up and then magicked two pillows to prop me up against the bed frame. He then handed me two potions to drink: one was a medicine and the other was a pain relief potion. The pain potion reduced my throbbing limb to a dull ache so that it only really hurt when I moved it or poked it. Kreacher then dis-apparated to bring me breakfast. Apparently, Father had allowed me to have breakfast in bed because I was sick.

While I waited, I could hear Sirius and my father arguing outside my room. Sirius was annoyed because Father had spent most of the previous day at the hospital with me, and therefore hadn't taken him to Diagon Alley to get a new broomstick. It had been apparent for ages that Sirius was the only eleven-year-old boy without one, and Father had only recently decided that, yes, Sirius should have a broomstick too. However, because we had taken so much time at the hospital, when Father and I had arrived home from the hospital, Father had put me straight to bed and spent the remainder of the day in the study. I must have gone straight to sleep with one of the potions St. Mungo's had given me and carried on sleeping until morning because I couldn't remember anything since being put to bed.

A few minutes later, the shouting match stopped (Sirius always seemed to shout unnecessarily when he was angry, and when Sirius answered back, either Mother or Father would get more angry too). I heard Father retreat downstairs, probably to talk to Mother, and Sirius's door slam shut. I felt guilty for making Sirius so angry and hoped he wouldn't hate me.

Another minute later, Kreacher came back into my room to tell me there had been a change of plan. I needed to be up, dressed and ready to go down for breakfast with the family because we were all going out on a family outing to Diagon Alley. "Master Sirius is always getting his own way," muttered Kreacher when he had finished. Kreacher didn't really get on with Sirius because Kreacher always said that Sirius's naughty behaviour upset Mother and Sirius was always mean to Kreacher in return.

Kreacher proceeded to help me put my clothes on because it was hard to do so with only one hand and I didn't want to have to ask Mother or Father for help. They had already had to go out of their way to do things for me yesterday and I didn't want to be even more of a nuisance to them – Father had had to miss an important meeting at work because of me.

I didn't even know if my parents would want to help, as dressing was more of a servant's task than a parent's task, and I didn't want to be told off for asking. Father was always comparing me to Sirius: how clumsy I was and how much better at everything Sirius was. That was why I always tried to be good and not argue back like Sirius did. I wanted my parents to be proud of me and give me attention for good things, not shout at me like they did when Sirius was naughty. However, no matter how good I tried to be or how naughty Sirius was, Sirius was always the favourite because he was the heir.

"Thank you," I said to Kreacher. Sometimes I felt like I was the only person in the house who treated Kreacher like a person: Sirius hated him, and Mother and Father treated him like dirt, except one didn't threaten dirt or say you would chop its head off if it did the slightest thing wrong. I hated the way my parents treated the house elves. There was a collection of House Elf heads in the hallway that Mother had decapitated when they'd become too old to work – sometimes I felt sick just looking at them. I cried when Mother killed our previous one – yeah I know, it's not what Blacks were supposed to do, but I couldn't help it – I hated killing. Sirius hadn't cried, but I could tell he'd been disgusted by it all.

When dressed, I went to wash my face in the bathroom, pulling stupid faces in the mirror as always (it looked funny and it annoyed Sirius whenever he tried to get into the bathroom). The bruise on my face was a lot fainter than yesterday, thanks to the healers, but you could tell it was sore still. I then went downstairs to join my family at the breakfast table.

Sirius scowled at me when I entered the room. I knew it was because he was jealous that I got all the attention yesterday, but I couldn't really help that. I didn't scowl back, but just mouthed "I'm sorry," and hoped he understood. Sirius didn't do subtle though, so I seriously doubted he would. Father entered next and then Mother, and we sat down at the dining table. Kreacher brought in the _Daily Prophet_ and gave it to Father, who sat reading it while we waited for food. It was a Saturday, so Kreacher brought in cooked breakfast (eggs and bacon and that), and cups of tea for everyone. I thanked him, and told him to make some tea for himself, but Father just ordered him to clean the attic instead – I think he just wanted Kreacher as far away as possible. Kreacher, of course, followed Father's orders and not mine, because Father was more important than I am. Even if Kreacher told me he liked me better, he would still have to follow Father's orders preferentially because Father was head of the household.

Mother and Father began talking about the contents of the paper. Sirius and I weren't really listening, but I switched on when I heard the words 'killing' and 'worthless Mudbloods' in the same sentence. Mother and Father were talking about rumours of a 'Dark Lord' that wanted to rid the world of muggles and muggle-borns, and to my horror, they actually seemed to agree with his ideas. I couldn't help thinking of Ted Tonks and that he didn't deserve to die just because his parents weren't wizards. I glanced at Sirius. He looked as disgusted as I felt.

I desperately needed to change the subject.

"Father, please may I leave the table," I said. When Father nodded, I asked. "Father, can I borrow an envelope, and can I use Athena to send a letter to Rebecca?" Athena was our owl, and Becky (Rebecca) was the only person my family approved of me playing with that was actually nice. She was a Pureblood, but her family were not thought of as Blood Traitors and were all in Ravenclaw, not Slytherin. As girls went, she was really nice, and she was clever, unlike Millicent Crabbe, who my parents insisted that I talk to on a regular basis.

Father said yes, and I left the table to choose an envelope from the study. I chose the biggest one I could find, because believe it or not, I wasn't just sending a letter. I wanted to write a letter to Stephannie but I obviously couldn't tell my father that.

I rushed upstairs and put the envelope to one side. I still had an hour or two before we had to go out, so I looked under the bed for the book my cousin had given me last night. Andromeda had been to see Ted again, and had picked up the book Steph said she would lend me. Steph had said that I was allowed to come and play any time I wanted, but I wished I could have gone too that day. Andromeda had explained to them that I was injured and I couldn't play properly, so I'd have to send her the book I wanted to lend through owl post, which would be a shock to the muggles.

The book Stephannie had sent me was about magical creatures such as elves and pixies, as well as beasts like griffins and unicorns. I opened it next to 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' so that I could compare them. It was interesting to see that the muggle version of the book was almost exactly the same as the wizarding one, although the muggle one didn't have as much detail on uses of parts of the animal. However, I think that was because muggles didn't make potions like we did – I think Andromeda said they did something called 'mecidal research' to find cures for things instead.

I then turned my attention to writing the letter. As well as thanking my friend for giving me the book, I also needed to tell her about the conversation at breakfast. If there was a new Dark Lord killing Mudbloods, then Ted, and Stephannie and Ryan by extension, would be targeted. I had to warn her.

 _Dear Stephannie,_

 _Thank you for lending me that book. I compared to it to one of mine, and it is very similar to what wizards think. I know I shouldn't be telling you all this at all, but Andromeda says not to believe what Bella tells me, and it was Bella that told me not to tell non-wizarding people about magic._

 _I'm really sorry I couldn't play yesterday. I hurt myself falling down the stairs. I don't think I will be able to play either today because Father has promised Sirius he will take him to Diagon Alley to get broomsticks, and he says I can go too. I also have other bad news. Father says there is a new dark wizard, who wants to hurt all non-magical people and people who have parents that can't do magic. I really hope he doesn't hurt you, and if he does, I will try and get Andromeda to protect you. Maybe I can even persuade Bellatrix to as well, but she doesn't really like people who can't do magic. Don't be scared._

 _I've enclosed the book all about Hogwarts that I told you about. Sorry it's so long. I hope you like it._

 _Reggie Black._

I slipped 'Hogwarts: A History' , which Stephanie had said sounded interesting, and 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them', as well as the letter into the envelope, glad that Father kept a supply of magically charmed enveloped that kept the packages light and small once they were sealed. As I wrote Stephannie's name and address onto the envelope, I wished I had written them before putting the things into the envelope as my writing looked terrible. I attached it to Athena's leg, hoping she would be able to find the muggle address.

Athena flew off out of the window just in time before Father came in to collect me. Mother and Sirius were waiting for us downstairs in the hallway.

"Regulus, hold onto my hand, and Sirius hold your mother's hand. We're going to be travelling by side-along apparition," said Father.

"Why can't we just use the floo network?" moaned Sirius. He looked as if he was about to be sick at the suggestion.

"Firstly, because Regulus-" began Father.

"I know Regulus hates floo powder, but I hate apparating. Why is it always about what Regulus wants?" said Sirius. I hated apparating too, but I hated Floo Powder even more.

"If you'd let me finish," said Father, gritting his teeth, "you would know that I wasn't just thinking about Regulus. Do you remember what happened last time?"

That was probably a 'rhetorical question' because I don't think Sirius would ever forget what happened last time. He had ended up in a shop full of dark objects and dark arts books, in Knockturn Alley, and when someone had entered the shop, he had tried to hide in a big, tall cabinet. He had ended up in a muggle village in the middle of nowhere, and had been extremely lucky that one inhabitant had been a wizard and called the Ministry. Otherwise we might never have found him.

Sirius just nodded his head in reply, embarrassed that Father had brought it up. Father always brought up times that Sirius had ended up in danger when he wanted to persuade Sirius to do something or make him behave well. I'd never told him, but I had actually been quite worried when he disappeared. Bellatrix said there was a cabinet like it at Hogwarts called the vanishing cabinet – I wasn't sure if I believed her, but I'd warned Sirius about it anyway.

Apparating made me feel sick and my arm started throbbing again, but when I recovered, Father led us through the street towards the broomstick shop. He was only going to buy a broomstick for Sirius, but he told me I was allowed to choose something to take home. I walked over to the broomstick accessories section, which had all sorts of things such as broomstick servicing kits, books, and extra things for Quidditch. There was even a set of expanding goal hoops to put in the garden.

"Oh look it's ickle Regulus," said a voice from behind me. I turned around to see Evan Rosier - a boy I didn't much like, standing with his older brother. Although he had only just turned nine (I was nine and a quarter), Evan was two inches taller than me. He revelled in the glory of being taller than me every time I saw him. Evan's brother Tristan was ten and would be going to Hogwarts next year with Sirius.

"Hello Evan," I sighed.

"I can't believe your Daddy's actually buying you a broom – you break everything!" giggled Evan. Then he noticed my arm, which Kreacher had put in a sling after helping me get dressed. "What happened to _you_ , Regulus? Did you fall out of bed again?" he asked.

I didn't want to admit to Evan that Father was only buying a broom for Sirius or that I'd managed to fall down the stairs. I noticed that Tristan's arm was also bandaged, although it wasn't in a sling and barely showed beneath his clothes, so it was hardly their place to say anything about mine. However, I didn't have to because Father chose that exact moment to come over:

"Good morning, Evan, Tristan. I didn't expect to see you here. Are you spending that Birthday money of yours?" he asked, mainly talking to Evan. The Rosier family gave their children money as well as their expensive presents so that they could choose even more presents. Their parents' lack of discipline meant that all three siblings were spoilt, even more so than other rich Purebloods such as the Malfoy and Macmillan family, and that they had free will to do whatever they wanted without consequence, including bullying me. Evan's oldest sibling had even tried practising stinging hexes on me once.

"Yes, Mr. Black. I've saved up my Christmas and Birthday money to buy this year's _Nimbus 1971_ and a broomstick servicing kit," said Evan.

"That's a very good broom, Evan. I think Sirius is leaning towards buying that one too, but it's getting harder to keep up with the latest models now - I've heard they've been increasing the rate of the new broomstick releases so that there'll be more than one a year soon," said Father. There had been an article in the _Daily Prophet_ about this a few days ago. The _Nimbus_ company were going to release their next broom in October this year instead of the new January and it would be called the _Nimbus 1972._ The _Nimbus 1973_ would be released next May and all future broomsticks would be out of sync with the year. "And what about you, Tristan?" added Father.

"Tristan is getting a Beater's bat because Damien keeps hitting bludgers at him in the garden," supplied Evan, as if that was perfectly normal behaviour for brothers. Damien Rosier was thirteen and even worse than Evan was.

"That doesn't sound very healthy," said my father. Evan's brother kept his eyes on the floor as if he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

"What broom is Regulus getting?" Evan asked, talking as if I wasn't there.

"Oh, we're not getting a broom for Regulus today. Quidditch is too dangerous for Regulus and it wouldn't be fair on Sirius if we bought a broom for Regulus too, when Sirius has wanted one for so long," said Father.

"Oh, that's a shame," Evan said. I could see the corners of his lips turning upwards as if he was trying not to smirk.

"It was a pleasure to talk to you two, but I really must be going now. Sirius is waiting for me," my father said. "I'll meet you by the counter when you've chosen something, Regulus."

When my Father had gone back to Sirius and Mother again, Evan spluttered with laughter that he'd been trying to contain. "Quidditch is too dangerous for Regulus," he repeated, laughing at me. "What are you going to get?"

There wasn't any point at all in buying Quidditch gloves, or a beater's bat, when I didn't actually own a broomstick, so I chose a book all about the sport so I would know what position to play when I got to Hogwarts. I ran back in the direction Father had gone and away from Evan Rosier.

Sirius, of course, had chosen the fastest and most expensive broom he could find (the same one Evan had chosen), and because Father was quite rich, he'd bought the broom without question. I wasn't jealous because hopefully Father would buy me a broomstick when I was older.

Father then went off to buy some potions ingredients, leaving Sirius and I with Mother. Mother was not in the slightest bit interested in broomsticks so became quite impatient when Sirius continued looking at broomstick accessories. As I had already acquired all I needed from the Quidditch supplies shop, I went outside with Mother while we waited for Sirius.

We soon spotted my friend Rebecca and her parents outside Flourish and Blots, and I ran up to meet them. Becky ran up to meet me too, her long blonde hair streaming behind her.

"Hey Reggie, guess what?" she said, after giving me a bone crushing hug (this actually hurt a lot, but I didn't want her to think I didn't like her, so I said nothing about it).

"What?" I asked, curious. Mother was giving her a disapproving look, both for hurting me and for acting brashly in public.

"Sekhmet's had kittens!" she said.

"Wow! How many?" Sekhmet was one of Rebecca's cats; she had two female cats called Sekhmet and Bast. I'd always wanted a cat or a dog, but somehow my parents had never got round to buying me one. Sirius II was fun to play with, but he wasn't really a dog and didn't roll over or fetch like a real dog either.

"Four. You can have one if you like," she said, "come to my place when you've finished shopping and you can choose one."

"Ok, but I have to ask Father first," I said. I hoped father would let me keep it. There was no real reason not to as we didn't live on a busy muggle road and there were no cars to squish it. Once I'd seen a cat get killed by a muggle car, and my parents had managed to convince me for a whole month that muggles were all evil just based on that fact.

"Yeah sure," she said, and then started giggling.

"What?" I mouthed.

"Over there," she said. I looked where she was pointing and saw her sister holding hands with a boy, and talking to him. She had a very dreamy, dopey expression on her face, and so did he. "They went on a date yesterday," she said, laughing hysterically.

"What did they do?" I asked, knowing it was likely to be something mad, like making weird explosions by missing random potion ingredients, or something. Becky's sister was crazy.

"They went," she began, but burst out laughing, "hunting for crumple-horned snorkaks."

"What?" I asked. "Those aren't in my book of magical creatures at all!"

"I don't think they are real. I think her boyfriend invented them," Rebecca told me. It seemed an odd thing to do, but I supposed it might be quite fun believing in fantasy creatures (I supposed most muggles classed Hippogriffs and Unicorns as fantasy creatures). I didn't want to try it though – hunting for things that didn't exist was a bit silly. I watched as my best friend's sister kissed the boy, while we made gagging noises, and then Father came along and called me over.

"Regulus, it's time to go home now," said Father. "We've got everything we came for."

"Father, Rebecca's cat's had kittens. Can I have one?" I asked.

"I don't see why not."

…..

That afternoon, I sat and played with my new kitten. Father had agreed to let me keep one, and I had chosen a little grey tabby. She had lots of stripes like a tiger, so I'd called her Tigress, after a female tiger. She had been the only stripy cat in the litter – the others had been two plain black cats, and a patchy brown cat.

I was in my bedroom with her because Sirius wasn't talking to me. I think he was jealous because I was paying more attention to the kitten than to him, but he hadn't been talking to me before I got the kitten anyway.

She was playing with a ball of wool I'd found in a cabinet downstairs, when I heard a knock on the window. It was Athena, returned from her epic journey to Steph's house. I opened the window to let her in. Tigress rushed under the bed in fright as the owl swooped into the room – so much for being the daughter of a lion goddess. I untied the letter from the bird's leg, and sat down on the bed to read it. Athena flew off to Father's window instead.

I read the letter:

 _Dear Reggie,_

 _Thank you for the book. I've only read the first chapter, but I'm finding it really interesting to learn about wizards and the enchanted castle. My Mum came in to make me tidy my room again and she was really shocked to see me reading such a thick book. I'm glad you are enjoying the book I gave you._

 _I am a bit worried about this dark wizard you mentioned, but if you think Andy can protect me, then I shan't panic. I showed Ryan your letter, and he's quite worried, but he told me not to tell anyone else about it. He knows all about wizards from Ted of course because the two of them have been best friends since they were three years old, and they don't keep secrets from each other. He told me that the reason you are not allowed to tell us non-magic folk about magic is because of something called the 'statue of secrecy' or something like that. He says it's actually against the law, so we really have to keep our exchanges secret from now on. He also found it very amusing that I was reading your book._

 _I hope you are better soon, and can come and play. It's still the Easter Holidays here, so I will be able to play every day. After that, I will have to go to school, so you can only come around after 3.30pm._

 _See you soon,_

 _From Steph._

I folded the letter, and hid it in the draw next to all my socks and things where Mother hopefully wouldn't find it. (Father usually kept out of my bedroom and Mother never opened any of the draws of cupboards – it was Kreacher's duty to clean my room, not theirs.) The most obvious thing to do would have been to burn it, but I wanted to keep it because it felt like something special – my first letter from a muggle. I wrote a reply to post later.

…..

 _AN: Thanks for reading. Thanks especially to 'BlackWolf2013', who has been reading this since the start, and to 'Pauchalina' for favouriting the story. Thanks also to '_ _Booklover99899_ _' and to_ _'Siriusbarks' for your recent reviews in general. I would also like to thank 'HP Fann 7' for continued support while I wrote the first version of this story._

 _Please tell me what you think._


	4. Rodolphus Gets Nasty

_Disclaimer: I do not own 'Harry Potter' or any of the associated characters or locations in this chapter. The only character that is mine is the cat, and I got the idea for that from Loki-mischief-maker._

 **Chapter Four: Rodolphus Gets Nasty**

It had been a week since my trip to the hospital and now I was fully healed. Tonight, we would be holding a ball to celebrate Bellatrix's last birthday as a Black. She was going to be nineteen, so would be ten years older than me. The ball was to be held at Grimmauld Place and not Cissy's house, because our house was bigger and had a grander reception hall and ballroom area. I wasn't really looking forward to it: Bellatrix's school friends, who all hated me, would be attending, as well as loads of second cousins and family members that I didn't really like much. The Malfoys, Mulcibers and Rosiers would also be attending, mostly because their parents, my parents and my aunt and uncles had all been friends at Hogwarts. Bellatrix had not had much say in the venue or guests.

Right now, I was playing in my bedroom with Narcissa, who had come round early. She had told me I was to spend the whole night dancing with her. She was the only invitee around my age that I actually got on well with. Or rather, the only person close to our age that Narcissa got along with was me: I supposed Garrick Mulciber was alright – he only ever had contact with me when Evan Rosier was also there, and so any teasing he did was probably because of Rosier's influence.

"Cissy, please don't. She doesn't like it," I said, watching as my cousin tried to dress up Tigress in her doll's clothes. I don't know why Narcissa had packed several dolls and their outfits as well as her own outfit for tonight, but she had, and it was annoying that she thought she could dress a _cat_ in _clothes._

"Yes she does," she said. She turned to Tigress, and started cooing like she was a baby or something. "Yes you do like it, don't you kitty?" she asked her. Tigress couldn't talk though, so she wasn't going to get a straight answer.

"Cissy, she's not a doll, she's-"

"Ow!" I didn't get to finish, because just then, Tigress scratched Cissy on the arm. It didn't draw blood, but still left visible marks.

"Told you she didn't like it," I said, laughing.

"Shut up," she replied, glaring at me. Just then, we were saved from another argument by Aunt Druella, who was now standing in the doorway.

"Children," she said (I hated being addressed like that), "it is time you got yourselves ready for this evening's celebrations. You have half an hour before the guests start arriving." I did what she asked and made Narcissa go away so I could change into my dress robes.

When I had changed, I looked in on Sirius's room. He was already changed and was sitting on his bed, probably plotting some prank to cause havoc at the party. I went to the end of the hallway and saw that Narcissa was already waiting for me. She was wearing a long, pale pink dress, and her hair was tied up so that she looked like one of the princesses in the fairy-tale books at Steph's house. She looked really pretty.

I followed her into the ballroom area, where she insisted that I practiced dancing with her, even though there was no music playing. I felt rather embarrassed, because Mother, Father, Bella, Andy, Aunt Druella and Uncle Cygnus were all watching us. Cissy didn't seem to mind and started swirling me around to some imaginary music that she was playing in her head. We danced faster and faster, and luckily I was good at it because Mother had insisted that Sirius and I took dance lessons. We then started being silly, and my cousin and I swung around in circles at increasing speed, until we both collapsed in a heap on the floor, laughing. Mother didn't look pleased, and told us we had better not do that when the guests arrived, which would be any minute now.

I excused myself to get a glass of water, and headed off to the kitchen where Kreacher could get me one – I would have got one for myself, but Mother had purposefully placed all of the glassware out of Sirius's reach. Knowing how clumsy I was, and how reckless Sirius could be, it was quite obvious why. I drank some of the cool liquid, and made my way back to my family, carrying the glass with me.

To my horror, though, when I reached the hallway, I saw something terrible happening. Rodolphus Lestrange and his brother were both standing in the hallway, wands pointed at Tigress.

"Show me the one for burning fur," said Rabastan, looking expectantly at his brother.

"You don't need a specific curse for that, brother. Just use _Incendio_ ," replied Rodolphus, in an exasperated tone. _Incendio_ was a spell Bellatrix had been using for as long as I could remember, and I was pretty sure it was listed somewhere in the first-year textbooks – the only school books my parents would let me look at.

"Oh. Alright then: _Incendio_ ," cast Rabastan. A ball of fire spat out of his wand and caught the end of Tigress's tail.

I reacted quickly, rushing forward and tipping the remainder of my glass of water over Tigress. I was shaking with anger. My cat had done nothing to hurt them, so why did they want to hurt her.

I turned to face the two brothers, who were already starting to discuss what spells to use next. I couldn't believe my Uncle Cygnus, who was usually nice, had allowed my cousin to marry into such a family of malicious, imbecilic sociopaths.

"Oh hello, _Regulus_. We were just trying to decide which curses we should cast on this fur ball here." They showed no dignity or embarrassment at having been caught; they seemed to think it was normal. Maybe it was in _their_ household, but it certainly wasn't in mine. My cat had done nothing wrong and didn't need to be tortured or punished.

"That's my cat and want you to keep away from her," I said. I tried to be brave and stick up for her like Sirius would.

"Oooh, and what are you going to do about it?" asked Rodolphus, stepping closer so that he towered above me. Tigress moved to hide behind me, resting her head against the back of my ankle.

"Umm," I began. Suddenly I wasn't so sure arguing with Rodolphus was such a good idea. He was nineteen, like Bellatrix, but much a much more aggressive and powerful demeanour. I decided to change tactics and try and persuade the Lestranges that attacking a cat wasn't the best idea. "I don't see the point in practising curses on animals. If you want to practise a curse, do it on something that you would normally cast it on, something that could fight back if it wanted to – that's what curses are for," I said.

"Oh, and can you think of anyone like that who would let us practice curses on them? No, because they would fight back if they could," said Rabastan. I don't know why he asked a question, if he was going to answer it himself.

"Actually, if we join the Dark Lord, we are most likely to be casting curses on muggles and children," said Rodolphus to his brother. "Can you thinks of anyone more like that we could use?"

"Hmm, yes I can actually," said his brother. It didn't take much for me to realise that they meant me, but I was not going to let them hurt Tigress. They couldn't do much harm to me anyway, because Mother and Father were in the next room. They certainly couldn't kill me, because the Blacks were an important pureblood family, and it wouldn't look good on their family if they murdered me. They could also get sent to Azkaban for such a wrongdoing.

Therefore, I wasn't as scared as I should have been when Rabastan pointed his wand at me. He whispered "Crucio", which was one of the three unforgivable curses, but nothing happened.

"You idiot! Watch and learn," said his brother. This time when the curse hit me, there was so much pain, that the only thing stopping me from screaming was Rabastan's arm, which I had bitten down on hard when he attempted to hold me still. He didn't seem to mind though, maybe because it kept me quiet enough so that no one else could hear us. I couldn't think straight, so I had no idea how long I was under the curse for, but when they stopped, my whole body was shaking so much that I could hardly stand up.

"You have to really mean it. You have to want to cause pain," Rodolphus said. "Try it on the cat instead."

"P-please, d-d-don't hur-" I tried to say, but Rodolphus cut me off. I couldn't get the words out anyway, because I was shaking too much. My knees gave way, and I slid down the wall I was leaning against into a sitting position.

"Don't worry, we won't. Rabastan stop," he said. He pointed his wand at Tigress and muttered something that sounded like the killing curse, "Avada Kedavra," and then Tigress was still. I now understood what Sirius had said about my dream not being realistic – there was no blood whatsoever. Rodolphus picked up the kitten and threw it into my lap, and then the two brothers entered the ballroom, leaving me alone.

I didn't want to be in the hallway when the other guests arrived and I didn't want my family to see me as I was, so I dragged myself to the kitchen and sat myself on Kreacher's stool. Kreacher was cooking something and looked a little taken aback that I was sitting on his chair. At that moment in time, though, I really didn't care about Kreacher's feelings. I ordered him to take Tigress, and put her outside, so I could deal with her later. I just wanted to sit down and cry, but Blacks aren't allowed to cry, and someone could walk in at any minute.

I sat there shaking until Kreacher came back in. "Is Master Regulus upset?" asked Kreacher. I wanted to shout at him, and say that of course I was upset, I'd just watched my pet being killed, but I didn't – Kreacher was only trying to be nice, and he didn't deserve to be shouted at. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't really my fault either, but I couldn't help thinking that if I hadn't intervened, they would have just used 'Crucio' or 'Impedimenta' on Tigress instead.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and one of the saucepans caught fire. Kreacher immediately put the fire out, but the food he was cooking had already been burnt. The poor house-elf took a poker from the fireplace and began hitting himself with it.

"Kreacher no! I order you to stop hurting yourself with that stick!" I shouted. Kreacher stopped. However, I hadn't given him specific enough instructions, so he seized a dish, and smashed it over his head as an alternative way of punishing himself. It broke into hundreds of pieces, scattered all over the floor. "Kreacher you do not need to punish yourself for things like that. Go and get a broom – not Sirius's new one, use a cleaning one – and tidy up before Mother finds out you broke it," I ordered him.

While Kreacher was gone, though, Mother came into the kitchen. Perhaps she had heard the noise, or my shouting.

"What happened here, Regulus?" she asked. I didn't want Kreacher to get into trouble, so I lied to her. I'd witnessed enough killing for one day.

"I was going to use the dish Mother, but I slipped, and it broke," I told her.

"REGULUS!" she shouted. "You know you are not allowed to touch the crockery unless we are eating. What were you doing?"

I couldn't think of a suitable explanation, except that I was hungry, which wasn't acceptable, because we would be having dinner soon anyway. Mother dragged me upstairs, where she gave me severe telling off and a quick thrashing (enough to make me see sense without leaving bruises). After that, I felt too ashamed to come downstairs, so I stayed in my room. I could hear the sounds of the other guests arriving, but I didn't want to see them.

A few minutes later, I heard a gentle knocking on the door. It was Cissy. "Hey, what's up? I heard Aunty yelling at you," she said, coming in. "Oh my god, you've been crying! What did she do to you?"

"Nothing unusual, Cissy. I'm not crying because of her anyway," I told her. I wiped my eyes as another tear threatened to fall. I still felt shaken from Rodolphus's torture spell.

"What happened then?" she asked again.

"Promise you won't tell anyone," I said.

"I promise," she said. I told her everything, leaving out the bit where the Lestranges tortured me, and the bit about Kreacher. Cissy was upset too about Tigress; she had loved the kitten as much as I had. I sobbed into her shoulder, and she cried too. I told her I didn't want Bella to have to marry Rodolphus, because he was horrible, and I didn't want him to make her horrible too. I didn't say, but I couldn't help thinking of the dream I'd had a week ago about Bellatrix becoming a reckless murderer too. I hoped it would never happen, but if it did, I would blame Rodolphus and his awful brother.

…..

"Oh there you are. Listen, I've spiked the drinks with babbling potion and some of Father's Veritaserum stash so there should be some… What's the matter Cissa?" asked Sirius. I had heard Sirius talking before he'd entered the room, and he'd only stopped talking about his latest prank when he noticed Narcissa was crying. I was crying too, but I had my face buried in the crook of my cousin's neck so that Sirius couldn't see. Neither of us was in any state to answer him.

"What happened? Why is Regulus shaking?" Sirius continued. He was more observant than I'd thought then.

"T-tigress," stammered Narcissa. She was still crying and even I could hardly make out what she was saying. The words "killed", "Tigress" and "dead" were distinguishable, so she was obviously telling Sirius what had happened.

Sirius appeared unfazed at this news, but he came closer, handed her a handkerchief, and allowed us both to hug him around the middle. Sirius was always kind to me when I was upset even if he didn't understand the reason.

When she had dried her eyes, Narcissa stood up, and beckoned for me and Sirius to follow. Sirius held onto me tightly as we followed Narcissa downstairs so that I wouldn't fall – if I was clumsy enough to fall at the best of times, I was an utter hindrance when shaken from the Cruciatus curse. We tiptoed quietly past the room where the party was, and through the kitchen to the back door.

Tigress's body was lying on the grass outside. Her eyes had been closed for her by Kreacher so that it looked like she had just fallen asleep on the lawn, only she hadn't. I shakily picked up the kitten, and began to walk towards the back of the garden. Narcissa had picked up a spade, which Sirius took from her, knowing exactly what she was planning on doing; she would only do it clumsily and dirty her dress, therefore ensuring the wrath of her Mother. We buried the kitten in silence, with only an "I'll miss you," and "I'll never forget you."

…..

When he went back inside for dinner, my very angry Mother greeted us.

"Sirius, go and wash your hands. What in Merlin's name have you been doing?" she hissed, trying to stay unnoticed by the guests. I don't know why she bothered; they were all staring at us anyway. "Regulus, I thought I told you to stay in your room. Never mind, everybody's seen you now, so you might as well stay anyway. SIRIUS! GO AND WASH YOUR HANDS NOW!"

Sirius went and washed in the kitchen like she had been, and then joined everyone else for dinner. I was already seated next to Narcissa, and an empty chair had been left for Sirius to fill between me and Andromeda. I was now seated between my two favourite people in the room and so was Sirius, because Sirius definitely preferred Andromeda to Narcissa. As he sat down, Sirius noticed the worried looks Andromeda had been given me and quietly filled her in. I was glad of this, as I couldn't bear to talk about it all over again.

The atmosphere in the room was awful. Narcissa spent the whole time glaring at the Lestrange brothers, particularly at Rodolphus for hurting Tigress, and I couldn't open my mouth for fear of starting to cry again.

Sirius's potion ended up with everyone who had drunk it telling everyone else their dislike of one another, which resulted in many arguments, making the whole dinner an unpleasant experience. I felt bad for being in such a horrible mood as his other prank – turning every adult's hair green and silver - would have been funny if I wasn't so upset. Kreacher got the blame for that, which made me even more upset, but at least Sirius didn't get into trouble.

Basically, the meal was a disaster. The only person who actually enjoyed herself was Bellatrix, who watched gleefully as everyone else had a horrible time. The only remotely interesting thing that happened was towards the end when Rabastan said something that I couldn't quite hear, resulting in Narcissa swiping him across the face, digging her fingernails in hard enough to actually draw blood.

In the end, I was glad when the party was over, and we were all sent to bed.

…..

 _AN: Thanks for reading again. Please tell me what you think._


	5. New Creatures

_Disclaimer: I do not own 'Harry Potter' or any of the associated characters. Thanks to Aurora Borealis 1234 and Aleksandryna-Zinnaella for your reviews._

 **Chapter Five: New Creatures**

"Checkmate," I said as my knight and bishop cornered Kreacher's king into the top right-hand corner of the chess board.

"Would Master Regulus like to play another game?" the House Elf asked.

"No, you can go and make tea now, before Mother finds out you haven't been doing housework," I said. We'd already played about forty games of chess and I'd won every single game. Either Kreacher was bad at chess or he was letting me win: I suspected the former as I'd tried ordering him to beat me and I'd still won – Kreacher had then tried to burn his fingers for that but I hadn't let him.

I decided to go and find Sirius again. Term time was always boring what with Andromeda being at Hogwarts, Bellatrix and Narcissa being obsessed with Rodolphus and dolls respectively, and my father usually working. With only Mother and I for company, Sirius had retreated to his bedroom to do only Merlin knew what, saying he wanted to be left alone. However, after several hours I was bored and hopefully Sirius would have calmed down.

"Sirius?" I knocked on his bedroom door. "Can I play with you now?"

There was no answer.

"Sirius?" I asked. I banged on the door.

"No. I played with you all of yesterday, Reggie," Sirius answered. He sounded irritated.

"But that was yesterday," I said. "That was ages and ages ago."

"No it wasn't. And I spent all morning in lessons with you as well," said Sirius. He was referring to the four hours of lessons we had with Mother between breakfast and lunch every day, which we spent in silence learning sums, runes and 'research skills' by reading books from the family library and writing essays. Today I had learnt about fractions, spent an hour copying down Nordic runes, and written a foot-long essay about orchid varieties. The lessons were supposed to prepare us for Hogwarts where we would have to write essays for homework every day. When we had finished writing Mother would always go through what we had written so that we could write better in the future – children of the Black family could not go to Hogwarts and submit horrible essays.

"Yes but we had to be quiet," I said. "We weren't playing then." I waited for Sirius to respond but he didn't answer. "We could play on your broom, Sirius; wouldn't that be more fun than being on your own?"

"Go away, Regulus!" shouted Sirius, using my full name to show just how much he wasn't in a good mood with me.

I retreated back to my bedroom, looking for something else to do. I hoped Sirius's bad mood was just because Mother hadn't been happy with him during lessons rather than because he hated me. I caught sight of the book lying on my bedside table: _Manor House Gardens: A Guide to Landscaping and Flora_ by Professor Alfred Rosier, also known as the most boring book in the world, had kindly been left there by Mother, who expected me to read the second chapter on 'climbers' by next morning. I knew why she'd chosen it – it was one of the only books in the family library that didn't include dark magic, which both my parents thought I was too little for – but that didn't make it any more interesting. The only thing I liked about it was the pictures.

I didn't want to read _that_ book right now, but that didn't mean I couldn't read another one. I rummaged under the bed to find my muggle books. I had recently given Stephannie back the book she gave me, as well as _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ and _Tales of Beadle the Bard_ , while she had given me back _Hogwarts: A History_ and lent me _Animals of the World_ and _Grim's Fairytales_. I'd already read both of them cover to cover already.

I chose to look at the animal book again and draw pictures of some of the animals. There were so many animals in there and most of them were ones I had never seen before. I had never seen a lot of the animals in _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ but I believed my parents and Anrdomeda, who'd taken Care of Magical Creatures as one of her options, that they were real. These new creatures, I wasn't so sure about. Stephannie had told me that there was a muggle zoo in London where I could see them, but I knew Mother and Father would never let me go.

I turned to the page on African mammals as this was my favourite. It was hard to believe that there was such a variety of animals that didn't even have magic. What's more, it had been muggles that had explored and classified all of the animals into categories, whilst none of library books I'd read had mentioned any non-magical animals that weren't native to Great Britain. Copying from the book, I drew long grass at the bottom of the paper. I then drew a gazelle, a zebra and an okapi (which I thought were the prettiest animals) eating some trees.

I felt warm breath on the back of my neck. "What is that supposed to be?" asked Sirius, pointing at the okapi. He must have entered the room at some point while I was drawing.

"What does it look like Sirius?" I asked. I didn't really blame him for not knowing. I'd never seen one until I read the muggle book.

"It looks like a deer with stripy legs," he said. I pointed out that it was actually more like a giraffe than a deer, but then I had to show Sirius what a giraffe was in the muggle book.

"It's called an Okapi," I told him.

"How come I've never seen one before?" asked Sirius.

"It lives in Africa and we live in London where there are no animals anyway," I explained. Then when Sirius looked as if he was going to ask something else, I added, "It also isn't in any of the other books because it isn't a magical creature, and you've hardly read anything you weren't told to." I wasn't sure if I should add that I had been reading a muggle book.

Sirius thought for a moment, and then looked as if he had just remembered something. "Oh yeah, Mother says dinner is ready," he said.

…..

By the time we had eaten dinner, it was six 'o' clock in the afternoon. Sirius and Mother had had another argument about blood purity, and although I knew Sirius was right, I had kept quiet – I had been scared to back Sirius up ever since Mother had told me about punishing us harder if I got involved. When the shouting match was over, Sirius was told to stay in his room for the remainder of the day, which didn't make much difference, as it was probably where he was planning to spend his time anyway.

The next day, Mother was still in a terrible mood, so I asked Father if I could go to Becky's house instead. Father took me, and I was very nervous, as this would be the first time I'd seen her since Diagon Alley. I'd been avoiding talking to her since Tigress was… since my kitten died, and I owed her an explanation as to why I hadn't spoken to her for a month. I just hadn't known what to tell her.

Father knew what I was worried about, because when we arrived, he had a quiet word with Becky's mother about it, and then she told Becky quietly. I was thankful that father had talked to them for me, for now I wouldn't have to mention it, and I wouldn't get upset about it again. Sekhmet, who looked like a larger version of Tigress, wound herself around my legs and purred softly. She looked so much like Tigress had, that I couldn't help thinking about it.

We waited until Father left until we started talking properly. I told Becky how boring my life was back at home, and she told me how much more interesting hers was.

"Oh, by the way, Xenophilius told me to tell you that your head is full of wrackspurts," said her sister to me, poking her head around the doorframe.

"What's a wrackspurt?" I asked. Over the past few days I'd come to realise that there were a lot of creatures that I knew nothing about.

"It's a tiny creature that floats through your ears and makes your brain go fuzzy," she said. Then, noticing Becky had cracked up laughing, she added, "and they're real you know. Xenophilius lent me his spectrespecs so that I can see them too. And he's right. Your heads are both full of them."

When she had gone, I ended up laughing too: Becky's laughter was infectious. "I don't care if she can see them with the spectrespecs," said Becky, "I refuse to believe that my head is full of tiny creatures." I myself wasn't quite so sure. I had recently been feeling quite 'fuzzy' or 'dizzy', but I wasn't sure whether that was because of the 'wrackspurts' or because Rodolphus kept using me to teach his brother how to do unforgivable curses. Actually, considering the things Becky's sister usually came out with, I decided it was more likely to be the latter reason.

"Becky, I've got something I need to tell you. Can you keep it secret for me?" I said. I'd decided to tell Becky about Stephannie, because her parents thought it was okay to talk to muggles, and as far as I knew, she did too. I already knew she could keep secrets because she had done so before, but I needed her to know to keep it secret anyway.

"You know I can, Reggie."

"Well," I began, "my cousin introduced me to a muggle."

"And?"

"She'd nice. She's called Stephannie, or Steph, and she's completely normal like you are, intelligence wise. She's been writing me letters and sending me books to, and there's so many things that we don't know about muggles. They've got all these inventions and know things that we don't know."

"I'm glad you've finally opened your eyes to muggles. They're really not like how your parents describe them," my friend said. Although I knew her parents tolerated muggles (it was one of the reasons my parents sometimes argued about letting me see her), they never talked about them in front of me, so I didn't know how much they knew. From the expression on Becky's face – that none of this information was new to her – I knew that her parents must have told her a lot more about muggles than I'd thought.

"I know. Mother had me believe they couldn't even think for themselves," I said. The two of us talked about what we knew of the muggle world before I thought of the brilliant plan of introducing Becky and Stephannie to each other. The two of us set off to Stephannie's house.

It was lucky that I remembered where it was. It took us over an hour to get there because we had to walk from Becky's house to near where Andromeda lived, and then to Steph's house from there. As always, Steph's Mother was delighted to have guests round, even though she didn't know Becky.

Stephannie was playing outside, so her mother let us out the back. It was the first time that I had ever seen her garden, and it was very small – smaller than our kitchen at home. There was a small round pool in the middle of the lawn with a pretend dolphin floating in the water. I ran towards my muggle friend, who was just dressed in a swimming costume and dripping wet, and stopped just in front of her.

"Hi Reggie!" she said brightly.

"Hi," I said. "This is my friend Rebecca-" I began, but Becky elbowed me in the ribs. "I mean this is Becky. She wanted to meet you."

"Hi Steph. Did you know your head is full of wrackspurts?" she said, in a perfectly dreamy imitation of her sister.

"What's a wrackspurt?" asked Stephannie. "Those weren't in that book you gave me."

"It wouldn't be. I think my sister or her boyfriend made them up," said Becky in her normal voice. I think Steph looked relieved that she wasn't actually completely bonkers.

"So, do you two want to play?" she asked. I said yes, and so did Becky. If we got soaking wet, Becky's parents would be able to make us dry again anyway. I took off my shoes and socks, and Becky tucked her dress into her pants so it would get wet. I thought it looked pretty stupid, but I didn't bother telling her that. We played at jumping in the water, then catch with her dolphin, and then tag in bare feet until her mother called us in for a drink.

We all sat down in the living room with towels underneath us so that we wouldn't make the chairs all wet. When her Mother had gone out of the room to make something called 'Hot Chocolate' (it turned out to be sweet cocoa and Becky said you could also buy it at Honeydukes in Hogsmeade), Steph started asking awkward questions:

"So who's this dark lord person, you were telling me about in the letters, Reggie," she said. Becky gasped, shocked that I'd told this to a muggle.

"Well, I don't really know much about him, but it is sometimes talked about over dinner with important people. He is someone who doesn't like non-magical people and wants to only have a society with wizards in it," I said.

"My parents think it's a terrible idea," said Becky. Her parents had always been neutral when it came to war, even the one with Grindelwald.

"Mine actually agree," I said sadly. "And I know Rodolphus and his brother are really keen to join up. I hate both of them right now though."

"You won't join will you?" Steph asked.

"Of course I won't," I said. "I'd rather have my arm chopped off than join."

"What if they don't give you that option though? What if they say 'kill all these people, or we'll kill you'?" she asked.

"Then I'll just have to die then won't I," I said.

...

 _That's all for today. That's the first chapter I've re-written that was actually only one chapter to start with. I'm not sure what purpose it had other than character-building. Changes made: more chess with Kreacher, the actual details of the lessons, and more direct rather than reported speech._

 _Please tell me what you thought. Thanks._


	6. Wedding Invites

_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the pureblood families mentioned in this chapter. I also do not own the magical world of Harry Potter._

 _AN: This takes place in May. Rodolphus Lestrange is one of the few people that actually enjoy using the torture curse, and thinks that children are ideal for practising on because they are too scared to tell anyone._

 _This chapter is dedicated to all those who have reviewed._

 **Chapter Six: Wedding Invites**

It was a few weeks before Bellatrix and Rodolphus's wedding and I'd been invited over to help with the invitations. As the Blacks were an important and well-known family it was expected that the wedding would be large and that we would be inviting a lot of Purebloods other than Bellatrix's immediate friends and family.

Bellatrix still lived in the house in the central wizarding district of London that she'd always lived in with her parents, Cissy, Andromeda (when she wasn't as Hogwarts), two house elves, and most recently Rodolphus (when he wasn't at his own family home). The house was almost as big as ours, but because it didn't have to stay hidden from muggles all of the time, the family had spent more money on decorating the front of it than we had for our house. The house appeared much grander than Grimmauld Place with its white, stone front and pillars over the front door. It was just as well as with Uncle Cygnus's Ministry job (Head of the Department for Healthcare), officials and newspaper reporters were often outside it. Luckily no one was outside it when I arrived – reporters made me feel nervous and sick, which was why Father had always tried his best to keep the media out of mine and Sirius's lives.

Instead, everything was quite normal when I got there. Bellatrix opened the door, pleased that I had made it, and as soon as she had done so, Narcissa ran up to me, giving me a tight hug.

"Hey Reggie, guess what we did yesterday!" she began, unable to contain her excitement. Narcissa had always been excited when it came to important events like weddings and loved planning things. She'd already decorated her dolls house the way she wanted her own house to look when she was older, she'd named her dolls the names she wanted to give her children (Lyra, Draco, Aquila and Leo), and she'd planned most of the things for her own wedding in little notebooks apart from the name of the man she would marry.

"What did you do?" I asked. The previous day, Saturday, Father had made Sirius and I sit and read over the manifesto for his political party, which I'd found out wasn't the same sort of party as Bellatrix's nineteenth at all, in case we were asked our opinion at any gatherings between now and the June elections for the Wizarding Council. It had been extremely dull and mostly about taxes and funding for minority groups to go to Hogwarts and St. Mungo's hospital. Father and Uncle Cygnus's party thought that too much money was being spent on free trials for werewolf cures and that people's taxes shouldn't be used to subsidise people whose parents didn't work going to Hogwarts. I didn't know what people they were talking about: everyone I knew had at least one parent that went to work and paid taxes, and only a little bit of the money went to Hogwarts. I hoped whatever Narcissa and Bellatrix had been doing had not been politics, because if I had to listen to anything else about politics in the next few days I would shut myself in my room and not come out like Sirius did.

"We went to Diagon Alley to get wedding dresses!" said Narcissa, and I sighed in relief that it was something related to what I'd come to visit for. "Do you want to see mine! It's pink and-"

"Not now, Cissa," said Bellatrix, trying to calm her sister down. "We're going to write invites now. Do you want to help?"

"Yes please. Can I do the envelopes?" Narcissa said brightly. My youngest cousin had beautiful, curly handwriting and last Christmas I had given her a writing set with ten different coloured quills and even more colours of ink, including the newly-out 'shimmer ink', which as well as coming in different colours, had tiny silver and gold fragments in that moved around in the writing and took on different forms like tiny animals and flowers. "Can I use my peacock-feather quill and the green and silver ink too?" she asked.

"Of course you can," said Bellatrix. She led us into the drawing room, where lists of names and a pile of parchment sat waiting for us, as well as Bellatrix and Narcissa's writing sets.

Already on the invite list were my parents, aunts and uncles, and both sets of grandparents. Bellatrix's mother's parents as well as her uncles Peredur Rosier, whose family consisted of his wife Ianthe and three sons, and Aurelius Rosier, who had never married, had also been invited, alongside Rodolphus's extended family, including the Crabbes. After adding on Great Aunt Cassiopeia, that made a total of thirty five people attending before we even had any friends coming. Bellatrix and Rodolphus were planning on hosting around one hundred people.

A second list had the names of just about every Pureblood in wizarding Britain written on it, and it was this that we would have to pick the remaining guests from.

"Well the Carrows are a definite, if only to keep Rabastan away from us," said Bellatrix. The Carrow twins, Alecto and Amycus were both fourteen and good friends with Rabastan – more so than Andromeda was.

"They'll also occupy Damien Rosier," I said, referring to the oldest of Evan's brothers, who was also the most violent.

"Or make an undefeatable gang," added Narcissa.

"I'll make sure nobody gets hurt," Bellatrix promised. "Is there anyone you two think we should invite?"

"Can we invite Rebecca's family," I asked. Bellatrix nodded, and put a tick by their name on the list. "And the Macmillan family. They're pretty decent." I wasn't a best friend of Macmillan but he wasn't horrible, my parents were okay with him, and he was all right to talk to if no one else was available.

"And on the opposite political side to Dad," said Narcissa.

"It doesn't matter about politics, Cissa, it's a wedding," said Bellatrix. "And what fun would a wedding be without any drama?" Bellatrix enjoyed conflict and chaos, so added another tick to the list. "Any requests, Cissa?"

"Thalia Eddison and Emma Fawley," said Narcissa. Their names also received tick marks.

"Alright. I'm also adding the Mulcibers and Malfoys to the list, and the Nott family, but I'm asking them to leave the little brats at home – they're irritating." Bellatrix ticked these families and then a few more of her choice, including the Prewetts because the boys would create chaos. The Nott family I knew had a thirteen-year-old and at least two other children who were seven and under. Lucius Malfoy was thirteen, Henrik Mulciber was eleven and Garrick Mulciber was eight, whilst their parents were all my parents age or older.

Just as Bellatrix finished adding tick marks, Rodolphus entered the room. He glowered at the list, scrutinising whom Bellatrix had invited:

"Why have you invited those idiot Hufflepuffs and those blood traitors, Bellatrix?" he asked and I knew he was referring to those I'd suggested. I glared at him. It was a horrible thing to say about my friends.

"The Macmillan family are not idiots, and dating a half blood does not make someone's whole family blood traitors," said Bellatrix. "I'm only inviting them at all because Reggie is friends with them, so if you can't think of anything nice to say then don't say anything at all and go away." Rodolphus didn't go away completely, but sat in the corner, clearly annoyed that Bellatrix wanted to invite _my_ friends to _his_ wedding and that she hadn't even consulted him on the guest list. Bellatrix didn't seem to care that her fiancé was sulking, and ignored him.

Bellatrix began writing out the invites on crisp, white parchment, and then handed them to me, to write on people's names. I borrowed one of Bellatrix's enormous, white, Hippogriff feather quills because I still found it amusing to write with them, and the two of us both used Narcissa's black and gold, quick-dry ink. Cissy wrote the same name on the envelope with green and silver ink, and put the invites inside. Narcissa's writing was actually neater than Bellatrix's, whose handwriting looked almost indistinguishable from mine. Luckily, Bella soon realised that it was much easier to duplicate the unnamed invitations with magic, than to decorate around fifty pieces of paper, so it didn't take as long as we had expected to do all of them.

When we had finished, Bellatrix told Narcissa that she would help her get changed, so that they could show me the bridesmaid dress. Bellatrix wanted to show me her dress too, but she couldn't with her fiancé present. It had always been traditional, even apparently with muggle households, that you weren't supposed to let the person you were going to marry see your dress. I had wanted to go upstairs too, but Bellatrix had said that boys were not allowed in girls' bedrooms, so I stayed downstairs with Rodolphus – I didn't want to have to explain why I didn't want to be left alone with him.

Rodolphus made me feel panicky and shaky. Ever since he had murdered Tigress I'd been having nightmares about him, and sometimes when I was doing something completely unrelated, I would remember him torturing me and it would suddenly feel like he was really there in the room with me, still with his wand out. It was difficult to hide it from my parents and Sirius: one moment I would be perfectly normal and the next I would be breathing fast with my heart pounding in my ears, like it was now. Several times already my mother had had Kreacher put me to bed early because of it and I knew she'd been having discussions with Father about me.

I hoped Rodolphus wouldn't do anything to me, because he didn't have his brother with him, so I sat at the table and pretended that he wasn't there. Some people believe that if you can't see something, then there is no proof that it exists, so I closed my eyes, and pretended I was alone.

It didn't work. I felt his heavy hand on my shoulder and looked up, opening my eyes to see his ugly face leering at me. His eyes were dark and cold, and I could see no kindness in them like I could with Bellatrix, Andromeda and Sirius, and sometimes with Father. I felt his wand dig into my side, and I trembled, thinking he was going to do what he did before.

"Don't tell anyone about this, unless you want him or her to die a very painful death," he said in a threatening tone. I wasn't going to tell anyway as no one would believe me. This was Bellatrix's fiancé: the man my family respected and wanted me to be like, and the man my cousin loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. However, Rodolphus's words added a new fear of the consequences I'd face if I ever did decide to tell anyone. He wasn't one to bluff and I already knew that he was capable of killing.

When the pain hit me, it was hundreds of times worse than before and I had to bite down hard on my forearm to stop myself from screaming. He must have practised it on someone else as well, probably a muggle or someone else who would be too scared to say anything. The pain was unbearable, and I felt the room going funny, as if there were several copies of everything in it.

When he had finished, I was a trembling wreck. The room was spinning round and round, and there were now two Rodolphuses standing there. Maybe he had used a multiplication charm like Bella had on the invitations. To my surprise though, he pretended that he was sorry, and tried to hug me. I was too dazed to understand what was going on. I saw something pink and sparkly appear around where the door probably was, but I couldn't really tell. For some reason I was lying on the floor. I must have fallen off the chair at some point.

I felt warm arms around me and heard Bellatrix asking what had happened. The glittering, pink blob floated closer and I realised it was Narcissa in a dress so dazzling I could barely see her.

"I don't know what happened. He just collapsed," said Rodolphus and his new twin. Bellatrix seemed to believe him.

"It's alright – it's nothing you've done so don't worry. Regulus tends to get ill a lot. His parents are thinking of taking him to St Mungo's to have some tests done," Bellatrix explained. I wished she hadn't told him this because now Rodolphus would think he could hurt me and get away with it.

I tried to tell Cissy that I liked her dress, which I didn't, but I don't know if it came out right. In the end, Bella just apparated me home, and put me to bed, explaining to my parents what she thought had happened.

…..

Later that day, I awoke to prodding and poking and noticed Sirius sitting beside me. "Shhh, Reg," he said, "I brought you some food, because you missed dinner."

"Thanks Siri," I said, but I felt far too sick to eat anything. I sat up shakily so that I could have a proper conversation with my brother. My vision was now back to normal, but my head, back and arms and legs were still aching from earlier.

"You're so soft, Reg. If you don't end up in Slytherin, I bet you anything you'll end up in Hufflepuff," he said.

"Why not Gryffindor?" I asked.

"You're not brave enough to be in Gryffindor," Siri replied. He was right. If I was brave I would stick up for myself and not let Rodolphus hurt me. He was also quite right about Hufflepuff, but for the wrong reasons: I stuck up for my friends, and if that wasn't loyalty, I didn't know what was.

"Siri," I asked. "If I do end up in a different house to you, will you still be my brother?"

"Of course I will, silly. You don't think I'd abandon you because of houses do you?" said Sirius.

"No. I won't mind either, if you go in a different house," I said. And I meant it.

…..

 _AN: Regulus has had it ingrained into his upbringing that he shouldn't be weak or be seen to be upset. The fact that this happens and that his parents know makes him feel like he is a disappointment to them. Rodolphus has also been practising the Cruciatus curse on another child, who Regulus does not know about._

 _On names, I had named the Mulciber brothers long before I rewrote this, but the names were never mentioned because Regulus was never on first name terms with them. The older one is referred to by his brother as 'Henry'. Tristan and Damien also received their names early on when I was writing this for the first time and when naming them I thought only of their name meaning and not of their origin. Mrs Rosier was called Isabella in my head for a long time, but I changed it to a name of Greek origin to match Damien's, and kept the other Rosier names as celtic/Welsh/old English._

 _Please tell me what you think in a review, and please suggest a prank for Sirius to do at the wedding. I'm also planning on adding Molly and her brothers into the story earlier than I did before (Molly did not appear until Andromeda's wedding), so what you think of the idea of having Gideon and Fabien Prewett as sort of like the Weasley twins in terms of personality, but older than Sirius._

 _Sadie K._


	7. The Wedding

_AN: I've decided to put the beach chapter back in, so that is now chapter seven and this is now chapter eight._

 _I know nobody likes it when you describe how beautiful a character looks, but this is Bellatrix's wedding day, so to her family, she's going to look beautiful. I've used this chapter to introduce some of the Pureblood families Regulus will talk to at Hogwarts._

 _I had another look at the poll I put up for this story ages ago – it was certainly interesting to view what people thought of my OCs. So far Stephannie has won for my best 'own character' and people like Becky and Damien Rosier the same amount (why do people like one of Evan's brothers more than the other and like the more evil one too?). Leo and Callie are tied but are from another story._

 _Also I think I should have put this as two chapters as there is definitely a difference in style between the different parts of this._

 **Chapter Seven: The Wedding**

"Sirius! Look what you've done!" shrieked Mother. She was already stressed from helping Bellatrix organise the wedding and now Sirius had gone and ruined mine and Narcissa's outfits with wet flour. I was secretly pleased – perhaps I wouldn't have to wear the horrible dress-robes with the tight collar after all.

"The booby trap was meant for Bella. Sorry Regulus, Narcissa," said Sirius, not sounding sorry at all. Having been told he would be under close supervision, Sirius had decided to carry out a prank earlier, while we were still visiting Bellatrix's house (Mother thought it would be easier if everyone got ready together).

"That isn't the point, Sirius," shouted Mother. "Just stop being so insolent!"

"Calm down, Walburga dear. A simple cleaning will fix this," said Father.

Mother sighed and waved her wand. "Scurgify," she said, and the flour disappeared. The impact the sticky wet dough had made on our hair, however, hadn't. The two of us were whisked to the bathroom for emergency hair brushing.

Mother hurried over to the sink and made me put my head over it while she re-washed my hair. The fact that she was frustrated and in a hurry made it a highly unpleasant experience as the luke-warm water washed over my head. Luckily because I was a boy and had had my hair cut short and neatly, it was over quite quickly. However, Narcissa with her plaited up-do was not so lucky.

"Ow! Stop it. It hurts!" cried Narcissa, as the brush caught on yet another tangle. Her long, blonde hair had become knotted to itself, and even gentle Andromeda was having trouble getting through it without pulling.

"If you'd keep your head still, it would be over much sooner. We only have half an hour before the wedding, and we need to get us there as well," she said to her little sister. Andromeda's dress was the same shade of pink as her sister's but not so frilly and little-girlish.

Like Narcissa, she was going to be a bridesmaid at the wedding. However, because Andromeda hadn't been available to choose the dress when she'd been at Hogwarts, Bellatrix had had to choose something that Andromeda would actually wear, but wouldn't look out of place next to her sister's. This was a hard task because although Narcissa's dress was fashionable for girls her age, it was so sparkly that it looked out of place next to everything except a wedding dress out of a picture book. Andromeda's dress was simpler, shapelier and looked like the kind of thing Bellatrix would have picked out for a normal party, if it had been black or dark green.

Once Narcissa's hair and dress had been sorted out, we all went back downstairs again to find Sirius waiting with my father and Uncle Cygnus. Bellatrix emerged a few minutes later with Aunt Druella. Bellatrix looked the most stunning and un-Bellatrix-like that I had ever seen her: her wild, black hair had been tamed into an immaculate do with shiny curls framing her face and had been secured with diamond hair accessories. Subtle make-up (not the black stuff she usually wore) made her already perfect features stand out beautifully. The dress, a full-length, sparkling, white gown, must have been the only thing in the shop more extravagant than Narcissa's. It was hard to tell whether it had been chosen by Bellatrix to make sure her sister didn't upstage her, or by Narcissa as the glitteriest thing she could find. Aunt Druella, by contrast, was wearing a long, floral dress and matching hat.

"You look wonderful, dear," said Mother.

"Thank you."

"You two look lovely as well," my aunt said to her other two daughters. "It'll be your wedding next, Andromeda."

Andromeda pulled a face at that, but her mother didn't see it. Andromeda really didn't want her parents to arrange a marriage for her; she wanted to marry Ted instead. However, it simply wasn't done for Blacks to marry 'muggles'.

Bellatrix, Narcissa, Andromeda and my uncle set off together in horse-drawn carriage – a vehicle that wouldn't particularly attract attention, unlike the Hippogriff carriage I'd seen being used by more rural families. After Father had methodically checked Sirius's pockets and shoes for Zonko's products, we apparated to just outside the wedding venue.

The ceremony itself was to take place in a nearby church just big enough for all the guests to fit into. It was old - built out of grey stone in the 9th century before wizards became properly divided from muggles and on top of a site important to the old pagan religion. Hidden from the muggles in the 13th century, the church had become the main place of worship for the magical population of London, which was one reason it had been chosen for the wedding for one of the "Most Ancient and Noble House of Black". The other reason was that it was familiar: it was where my cousins and I had been christened and it was where we celebrated Christmas and Easter every year.

When we arrived, many of the guests were already there. The Rosier family were standing with to the Lestrange family: Evan was standing awkwardly next to his father, his eldest brother was talking with Rabastan, and the other Rosier boy appeared to be sketching the church in a black, hardback notebook. There were also reporters standing beyond the churchyard boundaries – it wouldn't make front page news, but the wedding photos would be somewhere in the middle of the _Daily Prophet_ and undoubtedly in _Witch Weekly_. Among them, I recognised Anita Skeeter, a notorious in-your-face photographer that Father had previously tried to acquire a restraining order for (with no success).

I let go of Father, who'd been the one to transport me by side-along apparition, and looked to see if anyone else I knew had arrived yet.

"Hello Regulus," said a shy voice. It belonged to Millicent Crabbe, who was the same age as me and got on much better with Narcissa than she did with me, mostly because we had almost nothing in common. Millicent, or Milly as Narcissa called her, had little confidence due to being constantly picked on for her weight and lack of intelligence. As a result of this, her weight had become worse and Millicent was almost twice as wide as I was.

"Hi Regulus. Hi Fatty," called Evan as rushed past us towards Mulciber – a prime example of the sort of comments Millicent had to put up with every time she socialised.

"Don't listen to him, Millicent. He's just jealous that your hair looks lovely and his has to have gel smeared all over it," I said. Millicent's shiny dark hair was tied with a blue silk bow and was just about the only thing she had going for her.

"Don't, Regulus. Everyone knows I'm fat – there's no use pretending," she said, scowling at me.

"Ok, I won't try to compliment you to make you feel better about yourself. I'll go and find someone else to talk to," I said, knowing how awkward I'd made myself look.

I walked through the crowd in search of Becky. I passed Narcissa's other friends: ten-year-old Thalia, who was wearing a dark blue dress with her chocolate-coloured hair tied in a bun, and eleven-year-old Emma, who wore a green dress and had two auburn plaits. They were both talking to Pandora (Becky's sister) so she must have been nearby.

Eventually I found Becky, deep in conversation with Macmillan – the only person from a 'light' family we'd invited. Macmillan's grandfather was notorious for arguing for muggleborn rights during Wizarding Council meetings, so my Uncle didn't like him much. At nine and twenty-seven, however, Macmillan and his father had very little to do with politics, and since Bellatrix was in charge anyway, they had been allowed to come to the wedding.

"Hello, I've been looking for you everywhere," I said to Becky. "Hi, Macmillan," I added.

"Hi Reg, what've you been up to recently?" my friend asked.

I decided to miss out all of my recent escapades with Rodolphus and just told her some of the nicer things I'd done. "My Aunt and Uncle took Sirius, Narcissa and I to the beach for a day trip last week. Sirius found starfish."

"Cool. I went fishing with Dad, and my sister showed me some experimental potions," Becky said. "She's been making love potions for the cats."

"And I just played Quidditch with Dad," said Macmillan. Mr Macmillan was still very young and was much better at playing with children than Father was. He'd also bought Macmillan a top-notch broomstick without even being asked to. To be honest, I was a little bit jealous as my own father _never_ played games and Macmillan had just stated that like it was a normal thing to do.

"That sounds fun," I said. "Did you make anything explode?" I asked Becky.

"Not really. We got a bit of gloop on the floor, though. And we made Bast turn pink," she said. I laughed but then frowned when I realised what had happened to the poor cat. Pandora never ever thought before she did things. "Don't worry. Mum fixed her back again," Becky added.

…..

"Ooh look! They've arrived." Heads turned in the direction that Bellatrix had arrived. Now that the sunlight was on her, Bellatrix's true beauty could be seen. All eyes were on her as Uncle Cygnus made a show of helping her out of the carriage – help my cousin definitely didn't need. She walked gracefully, completely differently from her normal sauntering style, with Andromeda and Narcissa holding the back of her dress for her.

Everybody filed into the church so that the service could begin. Rodolphus and Rabastan stood waiting at the front while I followed my parents all the way to the front row. Sirius ended up squeezed in between Mother and Father, I sat next to Mother and then Aunt Druella sat down next to me. The Rosier family all came and sat next to my Aunt, which was annoyingly close, especially as Evan was now only one person away from me.

The service was very long, although there were a few songs to break it up. Sirius sang the "Hippogriff" version of one of the songs, which annoyed Mother immensely because she couldn't tell him off without drawing attention to it further. Evan spent most of the time fidgeting, as did Sirius when he wasn't singing, and Evan's older brother frantically drew Bellatrix and Rodolphus in his sketchbook, despite having been told countless times to put it away. Meanwhile I spent most of the service, frowning at Rodolphus and wishing it was someone else marrying my cousin. What Bellatrix needed was someone to love and guide her, not someone temperamental that would lead her further down the path to the Dark Arts, which she'd already started going down.

The worst part was the kiss near the end. It was the first time I'd seen Rodolphus touch Bellatrix in a romantic way and it was stiff and controlling, unlike the tender displays of affection I'd seen Ted give Andromeda. I suspected he behaved differently away from the public, as this surely couldn't have been the first time they'd kissed. Not if they loved each other, as I assumed they did.

…..

We travelled by Portkey to the reception party at Lestrange Manor. As the Lestrange family lived outside London in the Kentish countryside, their house was larger than ours with formal gardens and had a ballroom big enough for a hundred people to have dinner and still have room left over for a dance floor and a hired orchestra. The carpeted half of the room was laid out with white-clothed dining tables, where we all enjoyed the wedding "Breakfast" (which was actually dinner).

After that, Bellatrix and Rodolphus took to the dancefloor, gracefully dancing to an old traditional tune. Sirius took this as an opportunity to sneak off, while my parents were admiring the new couple. Soon after, Aunt Druella and Uncle Cygnus were also dancing. Rabastan, who looked like he'd been forced to do so, took Andromeda's hand and started to dance with her. Andromeda looked disgusted at this idea but took his hand anyway. Narcissa chose me to dance with because there was no one else her age she wanted to hold hands with. It was quite fun, and all the money Mother had spent giving me formal ballroom dancing lessons with Narcissa had paid off as I knew the right steps and my parents did not look displeased with my efforts.

It was a while later, when I had gone over to grab some water from one of the side tables, that Father came to talk to me. By this time, Andromeda had slipped away from Rabastan, who looked a lot happier to be dancing with Alecto Carrow instead, and Bellatrix was happily dancing with her father. I couldn't see where Rodolphus had gone to but I didn't really care. Narcissa was tentatively dancing with Malfoy, who'd kindly taken her hand when I'd left her without a partner.

"Well done for being so well-behaved today, Regulus, it's been a long day. I can't say the same for your brother, though. Do you know we he's likely to have gone?"

"No, Father, I haven't seen him since the meal," I told him. "He could be with the Prewetts – I can't see them anywhere."

"Oh yes, the troublesome twosome," said Father, and I could see a smiling glint in his eye even though his expression was neutral, as if he secretly thought their pranking antics amusing. "I expect he is looking to learn ideas from them."

"I imagine so," I said. The Prewett boys were three and four years older than Sirius and my brother looked up to them as the sort of people he wanted to be like when he was older. The only problem with that was that they were both Gryffindors and their elder sister was engaged man my parents regarded as a Blood Traitor.

"We don't want him causing any trouble," my Father said, referring to Sirius again. "Would you mind helping me look for him?"

"Of course, Father. Where would you like me to look?"

"Try the garden first. With any luck they'll just be playing hide and seek. If they are, you can join them. If not, and they are brewing trouble, bring Sirius back here so we can keep an eye on him. I'm not having Sirius responsible for making a scene again."

"Ok, I'll do my best to find him, Father," I said. Last time Sirius had caused 'a scene', Mother and Father had caned him and confined him to the cellar for three days, which was not something I wanted to have to happen again. The cellar was one of the worst punishments my parents had up their sleeve – it was dark, cold and damp and there always seemed to be rats in there, which was strange because Kreacher knew perfectly well how to get rid of them.

I discretely made my way out of the Ballroom and towards the back passage that led into the garden. Although the garden was not large enough to have a labyrinth like the Rosier family's garden, it was still a decent-sized estate and much bigger than the pitiful amount of outdoor space Sirius and I had to play in. The garden spanned five acres of formal gardens and mature lawns and trees, but I didn't make it all the way to the end of the passage before I bumped into an irate Rodolphus Lestrange.

I didn't know what he was doing there. He wasn't returning from a smoke and he wasn't checking on anything cake-wise as the Lestranges had House Elves to do tasks such as that. But here he was, and he didn't look happy with me.

"What've you told Bellatrix, you little brat?" he said in an intimidating tone, pinning me against the corridor wall.

"Nothing," I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible to show I wasn't lying. I really didn't want Rodolphus to try anything. We weren't in hearing range of the party, which actually had silencing wards on it to keep the noise in and that worked in both directions.

"Really? She's been on at me about being nicer towards you lot now we're married," he continued, holding his wand to my neck. I desperately wanted to get back to the party, or for one of the House Elves to come along or something and stop him, before this got out of hand.

"Well maybe she's just seen the way you treat me and wants you to stop. I haven't told her anything," I insisted.

"Don't. Lie. To. Me," he said, enunciating each word through gritted teeth. "What have you told her?" His wand was now stabbing into my neck.

"I'm not lying! I haven't told her anything!" I said.

"Cruci-" he started. But before he could finish, something hit him on the temple.

The sharp-cornered sketchbook fell to the floor, and Rodolphus stepped back, momentarily letting go of me to clutch his forehead. Blood was dripping from where the book had hit him. Rodolphus, looked angrier than before, but this time the anger was not directed at me but at Tristan Rosier, who was running towards us.

"W-what were you doing to Regulus?" he asked with surprising confidence. "It looked like you were about to use an Unforgiveable!"

"That's because he was," I blurted out before I'd thought about what I was saying. Rosier, who was now standing level with me, looked shocked but Rodolphus looked livid.

"I told you not to say anything," shouted Rodolphus. He pointed his wand straight at me again. "Crucio."

I prepared myself for the pain, scrunching my eyes shut and bracing myself against the wall, but none came. Instead I heard a scream. I opened my eyes and saw Rosier was on the floor, shaking from the spell Rodolphus had him under. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. However, this wasn't right. Rodolphus's wand had been pointed at me. The curse had been intended to hit me, which meant only one thing.

Rodolphus stopped, leaving Rosier silently crying and shivering on the floor. "Luckily someone got in the way this time, Regulus," Rodolphus said with a smirk. "That's not likely to happen again."

I could hardly believe what had just happened. If Rosier was anything like the evil, raging fanatic Sirius had made him out to be there was no way he would never have taken the curse for me. If he was anything like rude, bullying Evan or his violent other brother, he wouldn't have done it either.

"I'm telling Dad," sobbed Rosier, still shaking. "You can't get away with this."

"Like anyone will believe you," said Rodolphus. "It's your word against mine, and it's obvious who they'll believe. I'm respected in my career and my Father's a lawyer. You're just a kid."

"Actually, it's two against one," I said. "They'll have to believe us. You can't kill us either, as they'd find that out too. You'll go to Azkaban."

"Not if I obliviate you first," said Rodolphus.

"What's that?" I asked.

"But that can cause brain damage!" cried Rosier at the same time as me.

"It doesn't matter. Both of you are spares and you don't need brains to reproduce," said Rodolphus. Then he held his wand at Rosier. "Obliviate," he said angrily, and Rosier's eyes went blank.

Then he turned to me. I felt his eyes on mine, and it felt like he was searching my head. I vividly remembered my father asking me to fetch Sirius, and Bellatrix dancing. Then Rodolphus pointed his wand at me and whispered: "Obliviate."

…..

 _Sorry this took ages to update. I accepted a challenge to write from Scabior's point of view, which is quite difficult as I hardly knew anything about him. I also ended up changing quite a lot from the original version of this chapter, including changing it out of Andromeda's point of view. I've decided to put Regulus trying to free Kreacher as a flashback later in the story, as I think I've made him too mature in this version to try something as childish as that. He is still the same naïve Regulus as before, but I think he has more sense than before when it comes to the Pureblood status quo._


	8. Hide and Seek

**Chapter Eight: Hide and Seek**

Rodolphus stalked off down the corridor, heading back towards the party. I was surprised he hadn't attacked us given that he was bleeding from the head and looked as if he was in a foul mood. I wondered what had happened to him to make him that angry on his wedding day. I turned to Rosier, who was still on the floor, having tripped over his robes a minute earlier.

"Come on," I said, "we're supposed to be looking for Sirius." Rosier had been annoying me ever since Father had suggested we looked for Sirius together. I didn't know why he'd agreed to come: as far as I knew, Tristan Rosier hated me and had been perfectly happy dancing with Emma Fawley anyway. I couldn't recall any of what my Father had said regarding Rosier – probably

"No what are you on about? What've you done, Sirius? This isn't… this isn't home," he said, standing up without picking his sketchbook up. The book lay open at a page displaying a drawing of a female House Elf.

"I'm not Sirius. Of course we're not at your home: it's Bellatrix's wedding!" I said. I was confused as to why Rosier looked so puzzled. We'd just been walking along the corridor, he'd fallen over, and now he thought I was Sirius? Had he hit his head? I hadn't seen it even hit the floor and Rosier usually had a high pain tolerance.

"Don't be stupid, Sirius. Who else could you possibly be? And who would want to marry Bella? She's horrible and mean and she's only in fifth-year," argued Rosier.

"No, Bellatrix is nineteen and she's marrying Rodolphus Lestrange," I told him calmly, still wondering why he was acting like this. Rosier looked frustrated as well as confused and I didn't want things to escalate. "And I'm Regulus, you know, Sirius's brother?"

"Stop lying to me, Sirius. Regulus is titchy small and we both know Bella would never marry anyone. She's too stubborn," Rosier said. I tried not to rise to the fact that he'd just insulted me. There was obviously something really wrong with him to be insisting that I wasn't me and that Bellatrix was fifteen.

"Look, how about we go and find Sirius and I'll prove to you that I'm not him," I said.

"I'm not falling for your pranks again. I'm going to find Dad," he said and began to run off.

"Wait, you forgot this!" I called after him. I picked up the sketchbook and held it out to him.

"That's not mine," said Rosier. "It belongs to a grown-up. Look at the pictures in it." To be fair, the pictures in it were much better than any I could have drawn. However, Rosier, being seventeen months older than me, had always been able to draw much more accurate pictures than me.

"No, it's yours," I insisted, continuing to hold it out for him. Rosier carried the book almost everywhere if his father didn't confiscate it from him, so the fact that he didn't recognise the book or his own drawings was really strange. I tried to think about whether anything else could have happened to make him behave strangely, but my mind drew a blank. Absolutely nothing had happened that was out of the ordinary, and Mother and Father had paid such close attention to Sirius during dinner that he couldn't possibly have slipped anything into Rosier's food that had only just started to take effect.

"No, my sketchbook is blue with Kneazle prints on it, from Diagon Alley. And it's got a different number on it – one, nine, six, six. This one is really boring and black and says one, nine, seven, zero. It's not mine!"

"I promise you, it's yours," I said.

"No. It's. Not!" Rosier roared. "Just stop it, Sirius!" He then did something completely unexpected: he began to cry. He roughly grabbed the sketchbook, which apparently didn't belong to him anymore, and ran off to find his father. Hopefully Mr Rosier would find out what was going on with him because I was clueless and a little worried.

I set off towards the back door to find Sirius. Father had said that he was probably in the garden with the Prewetts, so I'd look there first. It couldn't be that hard to find him.

…..

As I thought, Sirius was playing hide and seek on the Lestrange's lawn. I found him easily behind a Cobra-shaped bush, where he was hiding from the Prewetts (his hiding place was much easier to spot from the house than it was from the gardens).

"Shh, they'll find us," whispered Sirius.

"Father sent me to find you," I told him.

"So?" said Sirius, disregarding Father. "Do you want to join in?"

I nodded, pleased that Sirius wanted me to play rather than ignoring me in favour of the older boys, who were faster and noisier than me. I decided that Father could continue to make small talk with our uncles and the Lestranges as playing with Sirius would be much more fun. I couldn't really remember what Father had told me to do once I'd found Sirius anyway – my memory felt hazy, which was probably because my head was too full of the fact that Rosier had been there and was acting really weirdly.

"I only left you because I thought you'd be happy with Cissy," Sirius explained. "You two often get on better without me."

"That's not always true," I told him, thinking of the time when Narcissa had forced me into a tea party with her, Thalia Eddison and seven dolls. Sirius had been lucky enough to escape with Bellatrix and Andromeda that time, while I'd had to sip invisible tea from a far-too-small, china cup and saucer and eat invisible cake from a matching plate.

"Found you!" called Fabian. Gideon, who looked almost identical to his brother apart from a small height difference, was just behind him. "You'd be harder to spot, Sirius, if Regulus was hiding too."

"Oops, sorry Sirius," I said.

"Don't worry, just hide this time. I'll count, as I've just been caught," said Sirius. He closed his eyes and began to count to one hundred, while I ran off in search of a hiding place.

The gardens at Lestrange Manor weren't the largest gardens I'd been in, but they had adequate room to hide. I ran from the main lawn through a side arch and found myself in a round haven surrounded by tall hedges, about a yard thick. In the centre was a deep fountain with frogs at the bottom, but there was little else to hide behind. Instead, I spotted a small gap in the hedge and squeezed myself inside. I then climbed up the middle of the hedge so that my legs wouldn't be spotted from the gap. Hopefully no one would be able to see me.

I waited and waited. I heard Gideon being caught and then Sirius and him talking as they walked into the area that I was hiding in. Through the gaps in the leaves I could see them leaning to look at the pond.

"Look at all those frogs!" said Sirius. "Aren't they cool?"

"I'm not keen on amphibians," I heard Gideon state. "I found one of Frank's in my bed one night. It was disgusting."

"Yuck," said Sirius.

"I know. I was all clean from the shower and was about to get into my warm cosy bed, when all of a sudden I felt this cold, slimy thing. And there was Travis, just sitting there under the covers, waiting for me."

"Well, I'm glad I won't be sharing a dorm with Frank then," said Sirius.

"Frank's not bad – we haven't quarrelled over anything else in two years. However, you won't be safe from Travis. Frank doesn't even share a dorm with us, and the toad still ended up in our room," said Gideon. "Come on, let's find our brothers." Their voices faded away as they looked elsewhere.

A while later I heard more laughter as Fabian was caught too. From the sound of it he'd been down the well at the side of the house, which had a rusty ladder for the House Elves to climb down. It didn't take long after that for the three of them to find me too.

"Got you! We'd been right by you and not even thought to look there," said Sirius when he'd caught me.

"Can I count this time," I asked. The others nodded; it was my turn because I'd won. However, before we could start again, we all heard a shout from the main lawn. As the youngest, I was sent to find out who it was. I walked over to the green archway and peered round it. Standing much nearer the house was an older red-haired girl, around the same age as Bellatrix. She saw me and gestured towards the house, still yelling. However, her words were lost on the breeze. "It's only Molly," I whispered to the others as I walked back to them. "I think she wants us to come in."

"I think we better had," said Fabian, who was the oldest. "Between her and all our parents, we'll be in trouble if we don't. Did she see you?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Then we'll have to go in," said Sirius. "Race you to the back door!" He set off at a sprint before us and reached the archway first. However, the Prewetts quickly overtook him on the lawn. I ran as fast as I could, but the older boys were taller and faster than me. By the time I reached the back door, the Prewetts were already there being scolded by their sister, and Sirius was leaning on the wall panting like a puppy.

"Look at the state of you!" Molly was ranting at Fabian. "Where have you been? The coal pit?"

"The well," he answered.

Molly huffed. "One day your antics will be the death of you. Scurgify," she said. "Regulus, you have leaves in your hair. Let me get them out before your mother sees you." As overbearing as Molly was, I'd much rather have her raking through my hair than Mother, so I let her pluck them out. Surprisingly, she had nothing to scold Sirius about, as he'd remained relatively tidy compared to the rest of us.

…..

"Hey Sirius, what did you do to my brother?" asked Damien Rosier as we entered the ballroom once again. For once his voice didn't sound menacing but strangely amused.

"Nothing," shrugged Sirius. Most people around us were still dancing, but there was a small group of Hogwarts aged people standing near the door, including Damien Rosier, Aldwin Nott and Walden Macnair – three boys nobody sane would ever want to spend time with. Damien enjoyed finding new ways to harm his brother, Nott enjoyed helping him and Macnair enjoyed chopping the heads off wild animals. I noticed that Lucius Malfoy, who was around the same age as they were, was still dancing with Narcissa on the other side of the room.

"Don't lie," said Rosier. "He came in crying to Mum and Dad that you'd pranked him. I just want to know what you did."

"He really didn't do anything," I told him. "He was outside the whole time with the Prewetts."

"Don't worry, I applaud you. Whatever you did to him was hilarious. Mum had to take him home," said Damien Rosier. He was grinning, I realised, as he recollected the scene. As if it pleased him that his brother was upset.

"Well I had nothing to do with it, so just move out the way," said Sirius, pushing past him and pulling me along too. We quickly went over to Father, who was standing on the side of the dance floor silently fuming.

"Thank Merlin you two are alright," said Father. "You should have come back as soon as the incident happened."

"What incident?" asked Sirius. "Nothing happened, we were just playing hide and seek."

I realised that in all the excitement of playing outside, I'd forgotten to tell Sirius how weird Rosier had been acting. "Sorry Father. I just assumed Mr Rosier would sort it all out," I said.

"Sirius, it seems you are unaware of tonight's events, so you may go and talk with your cousins. Regulus, I need to talk to you, so come." Despite Sirius protesting at being left out of the loop, Father silently but firmly led me into the drawing room. Once the door was closed and an extra privacy ward had been cast, he began to talk with me.

"Regulus, I need you to tell me exactly what happened tonight without leaving anything out," Father said in a stern voice. "When did you first notice Tristan Rosier acting strangely? I'm assuming it was you he spoke of since Sirius claims to have been in the garden."

"After he fell over," I told him. Speaking the truth as far as I could remember it, I told Father everything that had happened and of our conversation from the moment I'd told him to 'come on'. Father listened, analysing what I was saying. I imagined he was comparing it to whatever tales Rosier had told him, or even to something Mr Rosier had recounted to him. I knew Father would wait until he'd extracted all the information he could out of me before telling me what he knew. It was so that he could get a clear picture of events without influencing me.

"And what caused Rosier to fall over? Why were you walking with him – you two don't get on?" said Father.

"He tripped over his fancy robes," I said. "And he was walking with me because you told him to – when you asked me to find Sirius.

"Are you sure that's what happened?"

"Yes," I said.

"And you didn't meet anyone other than Tristan Rosier and the brief glimpse of Rodolphus you saw?" asked Father.

"No."

"I see," said Father. "That is very odd considering I recall sending you alone to get Sirius and that Rosier was in the room dancing when you left."

The two of us stood in silence for several moments, with Father scrutinising my face to tell if I was lying or not. I waited for what felt like hours for Father to speak again. "I have a theory as to what happened, and I don't like it one bit," said Father. "The fact remains that neither you, nor Sirius, would be capable of what Mr Rosier and I suspect has happened. However, Lestrange would be more than capable of both hurting Tristan in the manner we suspect and of altering your memory to cover it up," explained Father.

"Oh. What do you think happened?" I asked. What Father was saying made some sense. It had been strange that Rodolphus hadn't done anything to me earlier and my memory of events had felt hazy. Rodolphus could easily have done what he was saying. I'd thought that Rodolphus had just walked by earlier, but what if he hadn't? Had he done something vile and wiped my memory of it? And if he had, why hadn't he done that before, instead of relying on me not telling anyone about his Cruciatus curses? Perhaps he enjoyed the feeling that I was scared of him, because that was all he had ever achieved.

"The details are not for your delicate ears to hear, Regulus, but we both believe someone used a very nasty spell on him. One that is illegal. However at the moment we have very little evidence to accuse anyone, so you must keep quiet about it."

"Is there any way to tell if my memory has been altered?" I said. "Is it enough that our memories don't match up?"

"No, if this goes to court, there is a spell that will extract your memories from you and let experts examine them. They will be able to tell if it has been altered or not, but they won't be able to get the original memory – the one that shows what really happened. You were lucky. Only a few minutes were wiped from your mind and replaced with different ones so that you were able to function as normal. Rosier was not so lucky. Either the spell went wrong or didn't work correctly because of the state he was in when it was cast, but the caster managed to erase four years of memory."

"So how can we prove whether or not it was Lestrange that did it?" I asked.

"Leave this for the adults to sort out, Regulus. I don't want you getting into trouble," Father said. He led me out of the drawing room again and encouraged me to go over to Becky and Macmillan.

…..

 _AN: I decided to leave Regulus to enjoy the rest of the wedding with his friends. I'm sorry this took longer to write than usual. I've been writing some other stories: some about Regulus, some not. The one that is most in line with this one is "Regulus's First Flight", which features Sirius Black, Regulus Black and Tristan Rosier (or Evan if you want to read it as him – it really doesn't matter), which I wrote for a competition, for fun and to show what their relationship was like before it deteriorated utterly. "Becoming A Death Eater" is short and is really just a few ideas I had about Regulus._


	9. The Ministry

**Chapter Nine: The Ministry**

"I'm nervous," I told Sirius, who was sitting next to me on my neatly made bed. "I've only been to the Ministry of Magic twice before and never to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"There's nothing to be scared of, Reg. Father will be there the whole time and you haven't done anything wrong. It's not as is you're going to the trial," Sirius said. Sirius knew almost nothing about what had happened at the wedding because Father hadn't told him anything and had told me not to tell Sirius anything about it either, which had been a hard promise to keep when Sirius had kept on asking me about it.

Today, Father and I would be visiting the Ministry to write statements and show both of our memories to the Aurors*. These would later be used in the upcoming trial against Rodolphus to accuse him of wiping my memory as well as other charges. The adults weren't keen on having children below Hogwarts age in the court room, which was why they had thought it best that the Aurors and lawyers view my memories through a Pensieve Projection – a device used to cast the scene within a Pensieve onto something like a wall-sized photograph.

"If it turns out that Rodolphus hasn't done anything wrong, then I'll have made fools out of both our families," I said.

"Well both Rodolphus and his Father frankly need knocking down off their pedestals," said Sirius. "I'm sure everything will be fine if you tell them the truth."

"But what if the truth isn't good enough? We hardly have any evidence other than just a hunch that it was him," I told him.

"If you'd just tell me what he did instead of talking in riddles all the time, I could help you."

"Well…" I paused. I wasn't sure whether to tell Sirius. Father had been quite serious when he'd said not to say anything. I thought about how Evan loved to harass me about every little mishap I had and decided to keep the knowledge of what had happened to Tristan to myself. Sirius and Tristan's rivalry was worse than mine and Evan's and went back much further because they were older. As much as I loved Sirius I knew the Rosiers brought out the worst in him and my brother wasn't above teasing Rosier mercilessly about losing his memory for a few days.

I decided to tell Sirius a little bit – the part we'd be giving evidence for. "Someone wiped my memory that night. Father thinks it was Rodolphus because I saw him before I came to get you."

"Oh," said Sirius, looking puzzled. "Memory wiping is illegal, but from the way that Father's been acting I'd have thought that more had happened."

"Memory charms can be harmful enough to make people forget who they are," I said. "Father was more worried about what could have happened than what did happen."

"Maybe at the party," said Sirius, "but not after a week. You're obviously ok since you can remember me and the party." He was silent for a while as he thought things through. "I reckon something else must have happened to worry Father. Your memory was wiped so you can't remember it, but Father knows. That's what Rodolphus's trial is about – not your memory loss."

It was surprising how close Sirius was to the truth. Before he could probe further, however, our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Kreacher.

"Master Regulus, it is time for you to go with your father," Kreacher announced.

"Thank you, Kreacher. See you later, Sirius," I said as I followed him out the door.

"Good luck, Reg," called Sirius.

Father was waiting in the hallway and led me into the dining room to use the fireplace. There were several ways to enter the Ministry including the telephone visitor entrance, which Father thought he was too important to use and was too Muggle anyway, and the toilet entrance, which Father said was too undignified. Instead, Father thought the best option was to floo directly into the Atrium. The Ministry luckily had clean fireplaces so that we wouldn't dirty our robes too much.

I landed on my knees behind Father in one of many huge fireplaces in the entrance to the Ministry. My hands felt cold against the smooth, black stone, but were free from soot when I lifted them. I stood and checked my robes for dirt and creases. There weren't any.

Moving to stand next to Father, I was surprised at how many people there were. Even outside of the peak arrival time, there were hundreds of wizards all wearing their work robes, and moving quickly in an unorganised but purposeful manner. Even though I'd been here before it was still amazing to see so many adults all together at once. It seemed as if half the wizarding population were in the same room.

"Come, Regulus. We don't want to be late," Father said, stepping out into the main hall. "Stay close so you don't get lost."

I did as I was told. The Atrium was huge and the Ministry dress code meant that many of the people were wearing similar robes to Father. Although Father was above average height, he wasn't so enormous that he stood out from the crowd: there were many tall, dark-haired adults to confuse him with. I followed as close to Father as I could without touching him (I was too old to be seen hand-holding in public), all the way to the elevators. Father chose the least-crowded elevator, which already held three other people. A witch and two wizards, all of which I'd never met. One of the men gave a courteous nod towards Father, but nobody said anything. Father pressed the button for the second floor to take use to the right department.

All the way to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, my father moved swiftly and without talking, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Eventually we came to the Auror department. The corridors leading to it were less grand than the Atrium, but still decorated with awards, notice boards and paintings. When we arrived, the only part of the Auror department accessible to us was the reception area: a waiting area with chairs and a table topped with magazines and yesterday's _Daily Prophet_ , and a desk. Father left me to sit on one of the chairs while he announced our arrival to the receptionist.

The headline on the newspaper in front of me was of no interest to me. It was old news and about French politics. I looked instead at the noticeboard behind me. There was a smiling picture of a man beneath the words, "Auror of the Month", a list of new recruits and their mentors and a lot more newspaper clippings, this time highlighting the achievements of some of them. It was interesting, but most of the wizards were people I didn't know. After a while, Father joined me and started to read the newspaper.

It was a tall blonde man that came for us – around the same age as Father. "Auror Harrison*," he introduced himself as. We followed him through a door and down a passageway of offices with the names of senior Aurors on the doors: Mr. B. Crouch, Mr. F. Potter, Mr. C. Potter, Mr. A. Moody, and then finally Mr. M. Harrison right at the end.

"Feel free to take a seat, Mr Black," Auror Harrison said, gesturing towards the two chairs in front of the desk. Father was still standing with me next him. I wouldn't sit down without Father's lead. Luckily, Father chose to gracefully seat himself, once the Auror was seated behind the desk. "I don't believe we've met, Regulus."

"No, we haven't," I said. I had never seen him before during any parties or formal occasions when I'd visited the Ministry with Father. Father had never mentioned him either, only telling me about the Head of Department, Barty Crouch, and about Moody and Potter. From the corridor, however, I'd seen two Potters, so I didn't know which one it was that had been the hated Gryffindor prefect Father had gone to Hogwarts with. I didn't know what missions Auror Harrison had been on or what his position within the Aurors was. All I knew about him was that Father had never bothered to tell me about him, and I didn't think that was something I ought to bring up.

"I'm one of the leaders on the Auror training programme and have been in service for twenty years. I'm also in charge of investigating into your memory loss, while my colleague, Charlus, is looking into the case with Mr Rosier." Father gritted his teeth at the mention of Charlus and I guessed this was someone he didn't enjoy the company of.

"Shouldn't you be looking at both of our cases together?" I asked. They had happened at the same time.

"They _are_ working together on this, Regulus. Auror Harrison is just focusing more on you for the moment," said Father. "I expect someone higher up thought we'd get along more nicely than with Potter."

"I was allocated to this role due to my track record on cases involving children," said Mr Harrison to Father, rather sternly. "I also have a son the same age as Regulus."

"Your Head of Department also has a nine-year-old boy," commented Father.

"Who he ignores constantly," replied the Auror. He sounded bitter and as if he hated his boss over this.

"Get to the point, Harrison. This is not what we're here for," said Father. If I had been in the Aurors place I'd have said "you started it", but luckily Harrison wasn't that childish.

"Ok, first I'll need to hear your version of events. Regulus first," said Auror Harrison. I told him everything that had happened while he wrote everything down. Then Father did the same. "I'll also need to view your memories, Regulus. To do this, I'm going to use my wand to extract them. Are you ok with this," he said.

I nodded. The Auror leaned forward and gently touched his wand to my head. As he did so, I saw a sped-up replay of the events at the wedding. When the wand was removed, a strange silver substance was clinging to it like mucus. However, it was not sticky and wet, but had a gassy, ghost-like appearance. I watched as Auror Harrison let it slide into a tiny glass vial and put it next to some papers on his desk. I was not allowed to touch it. Father also gave his memories and then we were allowed to leave.

Once we were safely on our way out, I asked Father about Mr Harrison. In the meeting it had seemed as if Father had known him but had not really liked him.

"Auror Harrison was at Hogwarts at the same time as me. Being a Hufflepuff and a few years older than me, I never had the chance to get to know him. However, he was good friends with your Uncle Alphard, who never stuck to his own House."

"You didn't seem to like him much today," I said.

"I didn't like that we'd been assigned to talk to him," said Father. "Given that he's been in the department for twenty years, he isn't very senior. I expected to see someone higher up."

"He has an office on the senior Aurors corridor."

"A new addition," said Father.

…..

The next day was rather uneventful. Father left for work at the normal time, not taking me with him, and I sat in my bedroom reading. There were no lessons due to the fact that it was summer and Sirius's broom had been confiscated for the day – mostly as punishment for being rude to Father about favouritism.

I was interrupted by the arrival of an owl: the young barn owl that had been Andromeda's gift for becoming a Prefect. She was carrying letters from Andromeda and Stephannie. Andromeda and handwriting was similar to Bellatrix's, but even in writing Bellatrix's cursive black letters somehow managed to look harsher than her sister's slightly prettier, green letters. Another difference between them was that Andromeda called me _Reggie_ , while Bellatrix stuck to _Regulus_. Stephannie often sent letters with Andromeda because she had no owl and we had no muggle post.

The letter from Stephannie was short and had probably been with Andromeda for a few days before it was sent.

 _Dear Reg,_

 _I hope you had fun at your cousin's wedding. I've never been to a wedding before so you'll have to tell me about it. I'm going away to France with my family before school starts so I won't be able to see you for a while. I'll send you a postcard. Do wizards have postcards? They're photographs that you can write on the back of and send to people when you're on holiday. You'll see when I send it. I was also wondering if you'd like to join us for an outing on the weekend after we get back. Mum suggested London Zoo, which I thought you'd like. You can see all the African animals from the book I lent you._

 _Enjoy the rest of the holiday,_

 _Steph_

Seeing as I'd already written to Stephannie about the wedding, I assumed Andromeda hadn't been very speedy at delivering letters. It wasn't her fault: she'd had a busy few days with the wedding, its aftermath, her Hogwarts letter and taking Sirius to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies. I was also interested in the possibility of going to the zoo. I knew what the zoo was – it was where Muggles kept exotic animals to look at – but I didn't know how there could possibly be one in London. If it was anything like the Norwegian Dragon Reserve or the Irish Unicorn Park, it would be far too large to fit in a city. The Dragon Reserve was so huge that it took up almost half of Norway. A lion didn't need as much space to hunt as a dragon, but I couldn't see how it could survive in London. I would have to wait and see.

Next, I started to read my cousin's letter, which was much longer than Stephannie's. I knew she had gone to watch Rodolphus's trial with Father and Uncle Cygnus, so I was anxious to read it.

 _Dear Reggie,_

 _Father thought it would be good if I were to see a little of the trial. He's convinced being a lawyer would be a good career path for me since I'm on track to do well next year. He's organised me an internship too. I'm not so sure. To be honest, I didn't like the way things were run. There's too much power to those who already have it, like Rodolphus's father. Rodolphus hardly had any punishment at all, but at least he got something._

 _He pleaded guilty to altering your memories as there was circumstantial evidence that he was present and that they were tampered with. Because of that, he got a lesser sentence - just six months in the low security cells in Azkaban. There wasn't any evidence that he'd done anything in connection with Rosier and the courts will be assessing the other suspects later today. I'm not allowed to see that though as my father wants me to stay with Bellatrix._

 _When I started this letter, the trial had barely begun. Now it is over and I'm already anxious as we make our way home. I doubt this will be kept out of the papers and I don't know what this will mean for our family in the long run. Bellatrix has the worst of it. So far she has kept her composure and we haven't had a chance to speak privately, but she has multiple reasons to be upset with the outcome and I'm worried for her most of all. Azkaban changes people. Rodolphus is already a lustful and temperamental man but Bellatrix has always managed to stay on top of him. Azkaban will make him even worse and he is likely to take it out on my sister when he comes home._

 _I know this letter reads as if I'm angry that Rodolphus is going to Azkaban. I'm not. I'm angry that he will be coming home again. I'm angry that no one asked the right questions. Yes, the standard sentence for illegal memory charms is two years in Azkaban and he's getting off lightly, but the problem is not what he did but why he did it. Obliviation doesn't appear to have harmed you (another factor in the short sentence), but Rodolphus could have done anything in those five minutes he took from you. Even murder. In fact, both our fathers believe he used one of the Unforgiveable Curses, but no one has any evidence of this. They examined Rodolphus's wand and there was nothing worse than "Obliviate" and "Protego" on there._

 _I also wanted to say that I'm not angry with you over this, for telling your story to the Aurors. You couldn't have known what would happen. Hopefully everything will be ok soon._

 _Andromeda_

When I'd read that Rodolphus would be going to Azkaban, at first I was pleased. But reading on, I found that maybe that wasn't so good after all. I hadn't even thought about how it would affect Bellatrix and that made me feel guilty. Even if Rodolphus didn't hurt her when he came back, she would still be humiliated. And then there were the mentions of other suspects. Who were they and what were they being accused of?

I didn't get any answers when Father returned either. Father sat stony-faced throughout dinner and hardly spoke of the Ministry at all, except to confirm what my cousin had told me already. Later, I heard him talking to Mother about it.

"I don't believe even those three could've caused that much damage," Mother was saying. "And surely not through physical damage alone - you can't cause targeted memory loss through Muggle violence!"

"I know, but there's not much we can do now without causing more hassle. And given the verdict, Peredur Rosier has withdrawn all charges," said Father.

"That man has always been as useful as a sodden handkerchief," said Mother. Then she spotted me: "Regulus, go back up to your room at once!"

Everything I'd heard just left me asking more questions than before so I went to talk to Sirius about it. I told him everything in the letter and what our parents had said: that Rodolphus would go to prison but not for very long, that there were three unknown suspects and that Mr Rosier didn't want them to go to prison too.

"It's probably because whoever it was didn't do anything. Mr Rosier knows they've got the wrong people so he doesn't want them punished," Sirius said. I didn't really know what to say to that so I let Sirius continue. "I'm surprised they couldn't find anything else on Lestrange in the investigation. He's done much worse stuff before. They should've examined his wand. All the spells he's ever cast were on there!"

"They did. There was nothing on it," I said.

"He must have used a spare one. Sometimes old wands work for anyone in the family. I remember Rosier managed to get hold of his grandfather's wand once and unlocked all the greenhouses with it," explained Sirius. On that particular occasion, we had all discovered why the Bubotubers had been locked away in the first place.

"Maybe," I said.

"Actually no, that can't be right. He's done so many different things on different occasions. Surely they'd have found something, like what he did to your cat."

"What?" I was confused. What was Sirius on about?

"You don't remember? Rodolphus tortured and killed her. You and Narcissa were crying for hours!" Sirius said.

"No, Rodolphus didn't do anything to Tigress! That was Macnair!" I said. At the party, I'd ended up in an argument about something stupid with the teenager and we'd taken it outside the main hall. When the antagonised boy had started firing curses at me, Tigress had been caught in the cross fire. It still upset me to think about it.

Sirius's face screwed up in confusion: "I'm sure you said Rodolphus did it."

"No I didn't," I said.

"Maybe it was Cissa that said it then, but Walden Macnair wasn't even there. Bellatrix hates him – she blames him for the Wand Tree* accident."

"Well you hated the Rosiers for it and I wasn't even that hurt," I said, remembering the day both me and the Rosier boy were pushed out the big tree. No one even knew whether it had been Macnair or Damien Rosier that had done it or even if it had been both of them.

"That's not the point!" argued Sirius. "What matters is that Walden Macnair couldn't have done it. You saw Tigress. She was bloodless, still, and as if she was sleeping. Macnair only kills things to see their insides. He'd have cut her guts open and taken a picture!"

I wished Sirius wouldn't describe other people's torture styles. It was as discomforting as when he'd described how Bellatrix would choose to one day kill people.

However, it was even more scary that there were other, longer-ago memories that were now different. Why would anyone have changed some of my memories but not all of them? I could remember Rodolphus hurting me after writing the invitations as clearly as if it had been this morning, but I didn't even recall Rodolphus at the party. It was silly because I knew he must have been there: he'd been Bellatrix's fiancé. It didn't make sense. What was more, any number of the memories I believed to be true could now be false. I'd already been led to believe false truths about Walden Macnair – what about the other boys?

Perhaps it had been Rabastan that had done it instead. He might have known the truth and wanted to cover for his brother. He could also have known what happened to Tigress or Tristan, but he hadn't been there when Rodolphus had cursed me at Bellatrix's house, so he wouldn't have known to change anything. Then again, it could just have been that Rodolphus had been careless, incompetent or forgetful. Or perhaps they just wanted to leave something that kept me fearful. Either way, I now knew that I would be safe from him, but not for long.

...

 _AN: I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to put into this that weren't in my first story and very little clue how to write them in. I hope this is ok. If you read the old version of this, you'll know I had Andromeda in Ravenclaw. For this version, I'm putting her back in Slytherin where she belongs, though I think she'll have a very difficult seventh year because of it. I'm also worried about what to do with James Potter's parents. I started planning this before I read anything on Pottermore about his parents._

 _*I imagined the Auror department to be like a police department within the law enforcement department, so Regulus isn't actually having contact with lawyers or the courtroom at this stage. As for the Potters, I've always pictured that James' father was an Auror - at this point in time I thought Fleamont Potter would be working more behind the scenes whereas Charlus Potter would be a senior Auror but still in on the action._

 _*I originally introduced Auror Harrison during Regulus's first year, in Diagon Alley. After rereading that, I thought it was very awkward and thought it would be better if they had met before._

 _*The Wand Tree is an old-English oak tree in the Rosier family's garden and is over one thousand years old. Some of Evan's ancestors used its wood for their wands, giving it its name._


	10. The Hogwarts Express

**Chapter Ten: The Hogwarts Express**

It was the morning of Sirius's first day at Hogwarts and all four of us were ready to go to the station. Sirius and I were dressed identically down to the shiny, black shoes and robes that matched Father's boring work clothes, while Mother wore elegant, green robes with black lace. If it had been practical, Mother would have forced Sirius and I into dress robes to look our best for meeting the other students. However, Father had sensibly argued that we would have to walk through crowds of Muggles in order to read the platform and dress robes would not be practical.

Mother had insisted that Sirius packed his trunk the night before to avoid him throwing the clothes in unfolded like he did on holiday. She'd also watched him the whole time. Unlike on holiday there would be no grown-ups in the dormitories to magically un-crumple them and the Black heir could not go around Hogwarts looking like a "filthy Half-blood", which was what Mother called anything scruffy.

I felt uncomfortable: the garments under my robes were itchy and stiff, and I could feel my nose starting to run again. Last night I had barely been able to sleep due to the beginnings of a cold. My nose had been blocked, my throat had tickled, and I'd felt cold despite the warm September air. I had also been worried about Sirius leaving. I thought back to the conversation we'd had just before bed:

 _"Hey Reggie," Sirius had said, removing Sirius II so that he could sit down. "Don't worry, you'll be fine without me. You've got Cissy and Becky and loads of other people to talk to," he said._

 _I pulled a face. For most of the year I would still be left mostly on my own with nothing but tutoring and reading to do. "But I'll miss you," I said._

" _I know. It'd be so much simpler if we were twins," Sirius said sadly. Then his eyes lit up and I knew he'd had an idea. "I know! You can borrow my broomstick while I'm away. Even Father can't bend the rules about first-years having broomsticks so mine will be here. You can practise for when I get back."_

 _I had to admit that flying would be fun. I could sneak into the garden when Father was at the Ministry and Mother was out having tea. It was a very Sirius-ish thing to do._

" _Thanks Sirius," I said. We talked a little more about Hogwarts, and about the new friends Sirius was going to make. Friends that weren't in the sacred twenty-eight._

" _I wish I didn't have to share with Rosier and Mulciber," said Sirius. "At least you've got two years to wait until you're stuck with their miniatures."_

 _Even two years away, the thought of sharing a dormitory with Evan Rosier made me feel sick. "I think Evan is definitely worse. And don't forget there'll be others in Slytherin than just those two."_

" _You're right, though they won't be anyone we know. Poppy Parkinson's a squib so won't be going, she and Emma are both girls anyway, and Avery is your age. I can't think of anyone else. Well even if it is just Tristan and Henrik it'll be easier to prank them if we're all in the same room."_

 _"You'll write to me all about it, won't you?" I asked._

 _"Every day," said Sirius._

 _"Promise?"_

 _"Yeah. I, Sirius Black, promise that I will write letters home to my little brother every day."_

 _"You're the best," I said. Then Sirius tucked me in and left the room to finish his packing._

"Regulus, stop sniffing. Use a handkerchief!" scolded Mother, her stern voice snapping me out of my daydream. "I told you not to go outside in the rain! Merlin knows what muggle disease you've managed to catch."

…

We apparated to a quiet spot just outside the train station. The place was heaving with swarms of muggles all going in different directions. I couldn't help staring at them all and I could see that Sirius was doing the same. Mother and Father had always tried to keep the two of us as far away from the muggles as they possibly could when living in London, but every time I saw them they intrigued me. I'd asked Stephannie hundreds of questions but for every one thing she told me there were ten more things I didn't understand.

I wondered where all the muggles were going. I had heard that they had their own network of underground trains, which sounded fascinating, but when I had asked Father about it he had described it as dirty and primitive. It was obvious from the grimace on his face that he wanted nothing to do with them.

Soon we were through the barrier to the platform and I could see our Aunt and Uncle waiting with our cousins. There were also other families standing around by the train: some families that I knew and others that I'd never seen before.

"Good morning Uncle Orion, Aunt Walburga," Andromeda greeted warmly before focusing her attention on Sirius and me. A shiny prefect's badge was displayed on her uniform, which she had already put on. I said hello back and grinned at her and Narcissa. "All ready for Hogwarts then?" she continued, talking to Sirius.

Sirius nodded. For the whole journey he'd been jigging up and down with excitement that couldn't be contained in a dignified manner. Usually this would have meant chiding from Mother, but the excitement of Hogwarts was causing her to be lenient with him (it also wasn't the done thing to tell him off in public).

"I remember how excited I was on my first day," said Andromeda. "Bellatrix had been telling me stories of Hogwarts for the past five years, so I thought I knew what to expect, including the sorting monsters in the Great Hall. She told me I'd be greeted by a fierce eagle, a griffin, a basilisk and a badger the size of a house, and I believed her. Luckily it was all nonsense."

"So what is the sorting challenge?" asked Sirius. I wondered if a lion or cobra might be more suitable monsters to fight.

"I can't tell you that," said Andromeda, "but it isn't anything the average first-year would struggle with." Sirius looked very disappointed with her answer.

"What was it like on the train?" I asked. I couldn't remember ever going on a train as it wasn't a method of transport that my parents liked to use. The few times we'd gone on a long-distance holiday, Father had arranged to travel by Portkey rather than risk rubbing up against the muggles milling around at the station.

Andromeda paused before answering. "Well at first it wasn't great and I had doubts about the train being an efficient way of travelling. In fact it may not be a fast way of travelling but it is a good way of making friends."

"How so?" asked Sirius.

"The train forces you to either sit with people you know for hours and get to see all of their personality, or it forces you to find new friends. Either way, sitting in a carriage with someone for six hours gives you a full introduction to their character and how they act outside of Quidditch and formal get-togethers. In my first year, I boarded it with Rabastan since my parents had been talking with his." Sirius winced at the idea of sharing a compartment with the brute. "However, I only spent about twenty minutes with him before I decided it wasn't worth tolerating him any longer. I went to see if I could find any girls to sit with and found Amelia, who was intelligent and wittier than any of the other girls my age. We talked about our upbringing and the books we liked and even played chess. We're still friends now, despite being in different houses."

"Well Amelia seemed surprisingly well brought up for a Hufflepuff when she came to stay," said Narcissa. "Usually they're far too nice about muggles."

Andromeda ignored that comment and continued to advise Sirius. "As I was saying, the friendships you form on the train are often the friendships you keep throughout Hogwarts, so make sure you make the most of the journey. You don't have to sit and antagonise Tristan all the way to Scotland."

"I wasn't planning to," said Sirius. He was already dreading sharing a dorm with the Rosier boy, and hadn't even contemplated choosing to spend the train ride with him.

The Hogwarts Express hooted. "Come on, I'll help you find a compartment," Andromeda said. Sirius hugged me goodbye and was about to run off to the train when Father stopped him.

"Slow down, son." He put his hand on Sirius's shoulder, which was the closest I'd ever seen him get to hugging us in an open public space. "Now, remember what we've taught you. Be good, do well in your studies, and make sure Slytherin wins the house cup this year."

"Yes Father," said Sirius.

"Alright, run along so you don't miss the train," said Father. "We'll see you at Christmas."

Sirius actually had a good ten minutes before the train left, but that didn't stop him running eagerly towards it, metres in front of Andromeda, who was floating the trunks along. I waved enthusiastically after him and then stared sadly at the train when he disappeared from view.

"You'll get used to being on your own, Regulus," said Narcissa. "And by the time he gets back you'll have -"

"Oh look, there he is!" Sirius had appeared again and was now waving at me through the train window. It looked like he had a compartment all to himself. I waved back.

Suddenly I heard a giggle beside me. I looked to Narcissa who had her hand over her mouth.

"What?" I whispered.

"Look at that snake," she whispered, though her laughter made it hard to be sure that was what she said. When I looked confused as to what she meant – snakes were neither funny nor allowed at Hogwarts - she pointed across the platform towards where the Rosier family had just arrived. Lying like a scarf around the neck of Tristan Rosier was a bright green, life-size, fluffy toy snake of the sort you could buy in the toy shop in Diagon Alley. "That's going to be so awkward if he doesn't end up in Slytherin," Narcissa added.

"Blacks and Rosiers always get into Slytherin," I told her. Even Sirius was sure to get in, although the only Slytherin trait he ever used was the ability to plot devious pranks and sneak up on people. Speaking of Sirius, he was still at the train window.

"Their Mother was in Hufflepuff," said Narcissa, "and Bella says it's really hard to get in."

"Bella makes stuff up. She told me that Mudbloods were made of mud and that if socks weren't paired up properly they would get infested with sock monsters – neither of which is true."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in Hufflepuff too. Look at him," argued Narcissa. I looked away from Sirius and back at Rosier, who was now clinging on to his father while his older brother laughed at him. Their parents were telling neither of them off for their behaviour. "He also managed to forget that squibs can't study at Hogwarts, so he's definitely not a Ravenclaw," she added. I'd heard that Rosier had been extremely upset to discover that his childhood friend, Poppy, was not going to Hogwarts too.

"He's going in Slytherin with the rest of his family," I insisted. In my opinion there was no other house that he would fit into. He wasn't brave enough for Gryffindor, kind enough for Hufflepuff or clever enough for Ravenclaw.

"We'll find out by tomorrow anyway," said Narcissa. We watched from a distance as Fawley and Mulciber both approached the Rosier family. Mulciber said something to Damien, which made him stop laughing, and then the pair of them forced Tristan away from his parents and onto the train.

By now, Sirius had been joined at the window by another black-haired boy, who was also waving at his family. I shouted goodbye to him over the noise of the train and waved madly as the train started. Mother gave me a disapproving glance. We finally left after the train had disappeared from sight.

…..

As soon as we arrived home, Mother decided to inform me of how indecently I'd behaved.

" _Regulus, I told you to be on your best behaviour and you acted like a muggle! Explain to me why you thought flailing your arms around and shouting was appropriate."_

" _Well Sirius couldn't hear me over the train so I…"_

" _Sirius's behaviour was as bad as your own. A small wave of the hand was all that was required, and no one needed to hear anything over the sound of the train."_

" _Sorry Mother."_

I didn't like the way Mother always wanted me to behave but I could see her view. On reflection I felt a little embarrassed at how over-the-top the pair of us had been. However, it made me think about the way our family behaved compared to others. Families like the Malfoys were always polite and spoke in an official-sounding way, whereas families that my parents thought less of, like the Macmillans, were always friendly and talkative. I wondered if it was their behaviour itself that caused my parents to dislike them, or whether it was just that people who behaved like that didn't rise very far in the Ministry and therefore didn't deserve the respect from my parents.

Muggle behaviour was different again. When I had first met Stephannie, she had been eager to laugh, play and address me in informal terms. She acted with a brashness that I found fun but that my parents would hate – the same sort of behaviour that my parents always tried to discipline out of Sirius and that I had displayed today. Her parents had seemed more relaxed than any others I'd ever met, allowing me into their house with almost no explanation and treating me like they had known me much longer than they had. Stephannie had also been allowed to leave her bedroom in an absolute mess. I wondered if this was true of all muggles or just that one family, and if the way muggles behaved was one of the reasons by parents did not like them.

As far as I knew, Stephannie's family were not prominent in the muggle newspapers. I didn't even know if muggles had newspapers and she would have mentioned it if they were. What I did know was that my own family were almost always mentioned somewhere in the _Daily Prophet_ , and that Bellatrix had been interviewed for _Witch Weekly._ It was important to my parents that I was good, because everything I did could be seen by others and reflected back on them. In future, I would try harder to be respectable.

Luckily, Mother didn't punish me other than just a scolding, so I retreated upstairs. The house felt oddly silent without Sirius even though he'd only been gone for a few hours.

…..

"GRYFFINDOR! How can a son of mine be in Gryffindor house, for blood traitors and mudbloods?" screamed Mother, waking me up. Outside the sky was dark, so the owl must have flown quickly and directly after the sorting.

I thought I heard Father say something about nobility, and then Mother began shouting again. I could hear every word from two floors above them, and some of the things she said were so bad that I don't think I should repeat them. It included what she would like to do to Sirius if and when he dared to come home for Christmas. I didn't think that she'd do any of those things but I didn't like to hear about them anyway. She didn't seem to care that I was trying to sleep.

I buried my head under the pillow, trying to block out the noise. I wished I knew how to do one of those silencing charms that Mother knew how to do, but even if I did know how, I didn't have a wand to do it with. Instead, I grabbed hold of Sirius II, which was the closest thing to the real Sirius that I could get, and waited for the noise to stop.

For the first time, I realised that Sirius wouldn't always be there for me in the middle of the night.

…..

The next day, I woke up feeling worse than I had yesterday. A temperature, headache, hurting legs, and a sleepless night did not go well together. Mother didn't come in to see me, and I was glad of that, as I didn't want to hear her saying bad things about Sirius. I didn't know how she knew so quickly about his sorting – I hadn't realised at midnight, but it had only been about a few hours after the feast at Hogwarts that she had been yelling about it.

I didn't want to see Father either. Although he had been a lot less harsh than Mother, he had also said quite a lot of horrible things, calling Sirius 'a disgrace to the most ancient and noble house of Black' and other similar statements. Needing some company, other than myself, I called for Kreacher.

"Kreacher, please can you get me some parchment, a quill, ink and fetch Athena for me." Kreacher disappeared, and reappeared with the owl, and the other things that I had asked for. "I order you to not tell Mother about this, Kreacher. I'm not supposed to be doing anything except sleeping."

I wasn't sure if my orders would count against Mother's, but unless she specifically ordered Kreacher to tell her what I was doing, she would hopefully never know. I dismissed Kreacher, before placing the parchment and ink on the bedside table. I dipped the feather in the ink and began writing:

 _Dear Siri,_

 _I heard that you were sorted into Gryffindor from Mother. She yelled about it for hours last night and I couldn't sleep at all. I don't mind at all that you are in a different house to the rest of the family. Remember after I got back from Bellatrix's house from doing the invites, and we agreed that it didn't matter about houses and we'd be favourite brothers forever? Well I don't care what house you're in, you're still my brother, and I'll always look out for you no matter what. Gryffindor is for brave people anyway, so whatever happens, you'll be OK._

 _Mother was shouting about what she was going to do to you when you get home. If I were you, I would stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. I'll miss you if you do that, but I don't want Mother to hurt you._

 _On a lighter note, have you made any new friends at Hogwarts. The Prewetts are in Gryffindor and their friend Frank, but we've never really talked to anyone else in that house. I hope they don't hate you because you are a Black or because your family is in Slytherin. Have you met any halfbloods yet? If so, are they all as weird as Xenophilius, or are they just like us? Please tell me._

 _Hope you enjoy all your lessons. I know how you adore sitting still._

 _Love from Reggie._

I folded the parchment, and put in an envelope that I'd found on my bedside table. I attached the letter to Athena's leg and watched as she flew out of the window to Hogwarts.

…..

 _AN: Thanks for reading._


End file.
